Crime and deviance summary

functionalism and crime: durkheim

neither a high or low crime rate is desirable. too much tears society apart

other functions of crime

Davis: suggests protistution acts as a safety valve for the nuclear family

Hirschi's Social Control Theory

Individuals who are tightly bonded to social groups such as the family

ao3 criticisms of durkheim

- not functional for victim if theyve been assaulted

merton strain theory

merton bases his theory around the American Dream.

he suggests that everyone in society is working towards set goals

ao3 of mertons strain theory

:( doesnt explain non-utilitarian crime such as vandalism or violence.
:( reliance of official statistics is biased against the w/c

subcultural strain theories

argues that c+d is a result of deviant subcultures

Status frustration

Cohen:
argues that society is dominated by m/c values. w/c boys recognise this and are frustrated that they cannot achieve these goals due to cultural or material deprivation etc

ao3 criticism of Cohen

:( ignores middle class crime
:( gender bias- not applicable

Illegitamate oppurtunity structure

cloward and ohlin
denied legitimate oppurtunities to succeed in the legal opp structure

Focal concerns

Miller:
w/c deviants have focal concerns

post modernist edgework

Lyng:
argues some crime is committed as a result of 'edgework'

social construction of crime/interactionism (Becker)

interactionist approach

a deviant is simply someone who has been labelled as such.

moral entrepreneurs: crusade to change the law

police typifications

Pilavan and Briar:
'police typificatoons' are police stereotypes

negotiation of justice

Cicourel:
justice can be negotiated. for example

primary and secondary deviance/master status/deviant career

Lemert:
primary: deviance that has not yet been labelled
secomdary: has been labelled

master status: once labelled

Young case study (1970s)

study of marijuana users: drugs associated with hippie lifestyle (prim dev)

social construction of crime statistics

dark figure of crime: crimes that go unreported

deviance amplification spiral

Wilkins

seen with Youngs hippie users

two types of shaming

Braithwaite:

reintegrative shaming: only the crime is labelled

ao3 of labelling theory

- deterministic: once labelledm cant get rid of it.
- doesnt explain where primary deviance comes from in the first place
- realist: argues they paint the offenders as victims of a crime

approaches explanations of class differences

functionalism: Miller: conforiming to subcultural norms and deviance such as touhhness leads to conflict with the law

strain: when legitimate oppurtunities are blocked and an individual experiences strain.

Marxism: criminogenic

Marxist explanations of crime

- capitalism is criminogenic
- state and law making (incl. law enforcement)
- ideological functions

Capitalism is criminogenic

- capitalisms very nature creates crimr
Crime is a result of poverty

State and law making

Law enforcement serves the interest of the ruling class

Selective enforcement (Rimagined et al)

Reimagined et al - the higher up a persons social status

Ideological functions of crime and law

Pearce: laws that are passed appear to be helping the w/c

Marxism ao3

- ignores relationship of crime with gender (feminism) and ethnicity
- deterministic: not all w/c commit crime (critical crim'
- not all capitalist societies have high crime rates. Eg. Japan or Sweden
- there is still some action against ruling class (though

Neo Marxism (critical criminology)

Agree mostly with Marxism

Fully social theory of deviance

Taylor et al:

understanding of crime under six aspects:
1. Wider origins (inequality of wealth)
2. Immediate origins (context of the act)
3. Meaning of the act itself (form of rebellion?)
4. Immediate social reaction of family

AO3 of neo marxism

- gender blind: doesn't assess female criminality as it does with male criminality
- romanticises "Robin Hood" criminals

Sutherland

two types of crime

types of corporate crime

financial crimes: tax evasion

why is corporate crime invisible

the media: limited coverage of corporate crime and over reporting of w/c crime. reinforces stereotypes and using language which hides corporate crimes. eg workplace deaths are "accidents" rather than neglect

lack of political will to tackle crime: rhetoric of being tough on crime is focused on street crimes rather than corporate

complex: need highly qualified and specialised officers to research. whereas police are usually understaffed and underfunded

partial visibility? ao3

corporate crime may have become more visible sincd financial crisis of 2008. eg media campaigns against tax avoidance such as UK uncut

examples of abuse of trust

GP Harold Shipman: position of power as a doctor

right realism

-against rehab

causes of crime to RR

- biological differences
- rational choice theory
- socialisation and the underclass

biological differences

murray: attributes criminality to low IQ (Lilly et al: low IQ only affects 3% of offenders)

wilson and Herrnstein: certain personality traits make someone more predispositioned to become a criminal such as extroversion

rational choice theory

clarke: rational thought goes into a crime. outweigh the rewards and negative affects

underclass and socialisation

murray - the underclass fails to socialise children efficiently

tackling crime

Reduce rewards

ao3 of right realism

- ignores superstructures in society such as class

left realism

- corresponds closely to 90s labour policies
- for rehabilitation and explaining the root of crime in poverty etc
- agrees with marxism as a left leaning theory

causes of crime to LR

- subcultures
- relative deprivation
- marginalisation

relative deprivation

lea and young - society is becoming increasingly individualistic

sub cultures

Collective solution to relative deprivation

marginalisation

Lack clear goals and organisations that represent their interests. Experience frustration and express this through criminal means and violence.

Late modernity

exclusion

tackling crime LR

- government policies
- police reformation
- community approach

LR tackling crime: policing

Lea and Young: police spend too much time deterring crime than actually investigating it and finding the causes

LR tackling crime: government policy

Similar to New Labour policies

Gender and crime patterns and stats

In 2012

Do women really commit more crime?

Sociologists mostly argue that stats underestimate the amount of female crime

Chivalry thesis

Otto-Pollack:
Men are socialised to be chivalrous towards women and therefore the criminal justice system is more lenient and exaggerates the gender gap in crime - especially since police officers are mostly male (or they were in the 50s

Self report studies support for the chivalry thesis

Graham and Bowling: study on young adults

Official stats that support the chivalry thesis

- females more likely than males to be released on bail than remain in custody
- females are more likely to receive a fine

Ao3 against the chivalry thesis

- increase in female police officers in post modern society

Explaining female crime

- sex role theory
- patriarchal control theory
- liberation thesis
- biological explanation

Biological explanation for gender differences

Lombrosso: women do not have a pre-disposition to commit crime

Sex role theory/socialisation

- boys are encouraged to be tough and aggressive

Patriachal control theory 1: why women don't commit crime

Heidensohn: patriarchal society imposes control over women in the home

keeping women in the home sphere and restricts chance of crime.
Lees: girls experience verbal abuse such as being labelled as 'slags' if they fail to conform to gender expectations
Ao3: not all crimes occur in public

Work: sexual harassment is common in the workplace & subordinate position reduces oppurtunity for corporate crime.
As well as this: glass ceiling prevents women from achieving (pay gap)
Ao3: existence of legislation such as Sex Discrimination 1975

Heidensohn evaluation

- outdated: existence of symmetrical/same sex families: women go to work

Control theory 2: why women do commit crime

Carlen: there are two reasons girls do commit crime. Found this in her study of 39 female

Control theory: gender deal

- women who dont have a gender deal (arent treated as a woman

Control theory: class deal

Girls lack a class deal (not being payed off for their hardwork)

Ao3 evaluation of Carlens control theory and class/gender deals

- not generalisable: small sample of 39 no pop validity. And cant generalise to women that commit crime that haven't been in the care system and are middle class as the sample was mostly w/c girls that had been in care..
- interactionists accuse feminists of ignoring the existence of free will: feminists blame external factors for gender differences

Liberation thesis

Adler: proposed that women have started to commit crime due t being liberated recently

Ao3 evaluation of the liberation thesis

Box: rise in female property crime is a result of poverty due to recent recessions rather than liberation

Why do men commit crime? Media/Kats meow

Katz- media depicts men as overly masculine traits and adopt a "tough guise" in fear of being subject to verbal abuse when they don't conform to hyper masc

Messerschmidt

There is a 'normative masculinity' (what men feel they should behave like) and is highly valued. Eg. Exercising power over women via domestic abuse

M/c males: educational success at the expense of emasculation. 'Accommodating masculinity' in school for grades

Ethnicity and male crime

Connel - young black males sucked into property and violent crime to enhance hegemonic masculinity

Criticism of messerschmidt

- only explains males traits

Why men commit crime pt 2

Winlow (2001):
W/c males have become more violent in the past 40 years due to the changing nature of the economy. In the industrial period

Criticism of Winlow

- doesn't explain m/c crime
- doesn't explain non aggressive crimes such as corporate crimes

Ethnicity and official crime statistics

Members of black communities more likely than white peers to:
- x7 more likely to be stopped and searched
- x3 more likely to be arrested
- x5 more likely to be in prison

Black people account for 3% of population

such as domestic abuse or fraud). Therefire

sociologists use triagulation technique to gather a more accurate description of ethnicity and crime (such as self report techniques

Victim surveys as an alternative to official crime stats to investigate ethnicity and crime

Victim surveys:
- show that 'mugging' crimes involve an over-representation of black people as criminals. But victim surveys also show that a lot of crime is intra-ethnic (happens inside of ethnic groups)
Ao3 of VS:
- prejudice of victim: may state that the victim was an EM even if they don't know their race due to stereotypes or be purposefully making EM look bad in their response.
- rely on victims memory of events: may be skewed by anxiety

but minority ethnic groups contain a higher portion of young people - truly generalisable?
- exclude white collar and corporate crimes

Self report studies as an alternative to official stats to investigate ethnicity and crime

Self report study:
Graham and Bowling: black people (43%) and white people (44%) had a similar rate of crime in their SRS

Policing: racism and ethnic crime

Phillips and Bowling: there have been many allegations of oppressive policing of minority communities such as:

"Mass stop and searches

Stop and search: racism and ethnic crime

Police can use their power to stop and search anyone if they have ''reasonable suspicion" to do so. This means that minority ethnic groups are victim to a disproportionate amount of stop and searches (being x7 more likely to be stopped than white people)

as well as having little faith in the police as ethnic minorities are being over-policed and under protected

which statistics have shown to be true

Stop and search patterns

Police racism -
Macpherson report: investigated a death of a black teen and concluded that institutional racism had been involved

many officers had negative stereotypes of ethnic minority offenders

leading to deliberate targeting of stop and search.

Alt perspective: may be demographic features: ethnic minorities are over represented in groups such as the unemployed

Arrests and cautions: racism and ethnic crime

In 2014

Persecution and trial: racism and ethnic crime

Crown persecution service (CPS) is the body responsible for deciding whether a police arrest should be bought to court based on public interest and if the conviction is realistic. And they are more likely to drop cases against ethnic minorities

B&P: suggest this is because evidence for cases against EM are often dropped as evidence presented by the police is often weaker and based on stereotypes

Convictions and sentencing: racism and ethnic crime

Black and asian people are less likely to be found as guilty. Suggesting discrimination

Pre-sentence reports: racism and ethnic crime

Probation officers psr (risk assessment) is sent to court and may allow discrimination

Hudson and Bramhall: psrs allow for unwitting discrimination. Reports of asian offenders said that they were less remorseful and less comprehensive. H&D argue that this is because of the demonisation of muslims after 9/11.

Prison: racism and ethnic crime

2014: a quarter of the prison population were ethnic minorities. Black people were x4 more likely to be in prison that whites. All minority groups have a high average proportion of prisoners awaiting trial as they're less likely to receive bail or let off with a caution

Similar in usa: 2/5 of prisoners were black and 1 in 5 is hispanic.

Left realists explaining the difference in ethnic offending

Lea and young: offending stats show a real difference in offending as a result of relative deprivation

( - blacks may be more likely to offend because of police stereotypes being different for the two groups eg. May view black people as dangerous and asians as passive

Gilroy - neo marxist explanation of differences in ethnic offending

- idea of black criminality is a myth

Hall et al - neo marxist explanation of difference in offending

70s moral panic about black "muggers" as a result of the government/ruling class needing a mechanism to provide a distraction to the growing opposition to capitalism - serving as a scapegoat despite no actual rise in mugging.

This presented black youths as a threat to society and encouraged racism amongst public and the police

:( - black street crime may have been rising due to a rise in unemployment
:( - left realists: may just be a realistic picture on inner city crime

Interpretivist explanations of ethnic differences in crime

- official stats do not tell us about who actually commits crime

Judicial bias - explanation for difference in offending

Phillips and Bowling: Negative treatment of police may cause em to be hostile and skeptical towards the police

Ethnicity and victimisation

When someone is selected for racist victimisation in a hate crime (can occur due to religion). Has come into public discussion as a result of the racist murder of Stephen Lawrence and the Macpherson report revealing that the police had been institutionally racist when responding

Extebt and risk of victimisation

2014: police recorded 54k racist incidents in England - usually property damage or verbal harassment (many unreported eg. CSEW estimates there were actually around 89k)

Mixed backgrounds are 27% of victims are mixed

Responses to victimisation

Members if em communities are often active in responding to victimisation