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-Functionalism:
The inevitability of Crime?
P= Social regulation
E= Can perform a boundary setting function- reminding the law. Pursuit, trial + punishment of criminals reassure people that society is functioning effectively.
E= Davies> prostitution provides economic support for unskilled women
E= Deviance is a warning signal that something in society is not properly working.
P= Social integration
E= Some crimes create public outrage which reinforce social solidarity + community values against offenders, argued it only becomes dysfunctional when its rate is unusually high or low.
E= London Riots, when particularly horrific crimes have been committed the whole community joins together in outrage.
E= Taking official crime statistics at face value
P= Social change
E= Everytime a person is prosecuted for a crime attention is drawn to that act. This leads to agencies of social control having to take legal reform action.
E= Sufragette movement caused violence when fighting for woman’s rights which resulted in social change of guaranteeing women the right to vote.
E= Assume that society has universal norms + values.
Structural Functionalism?
P= Bonds of attachment
E= Hirschi> crime is a result of poor/ a lack of socialisation into societies shared norms + values. Criminal activity occurs when an individual’s attachment to society is weakened.
E= Working-class students turn to crime as they are labelled at school and struggle to find a job, so turn to crime.
E= Blames the victim, ignores wider societal factors e.g. poverty, middle class commit crimes as well.
P= Strain theory
E= Merton> ‘if we work hard we will be rewarded with status + material health’. The problem is there are insufficient opportunities for all those who work hard to achieve, this is therefore a strain between what we think we should have + our ability to achieve this legitimately. Striving to achieve the ‘American dream’ could lead to criminal or deviant behaviours.
E= Rebelion> people who reject the dominant social goals + the means the achieve them e.g. terrorist
E= Marxist> Ignores the powers of ruling class who enforce laws in a way that criminalise the poor but not the rich.
Subcultural functionalism?
P= Status frustration
E= Cohen> argues that lower class boys strove to emulate middle-class values + aspirations, but lacked the means to achieve success, this led to status frustration- a sense of personal failure + inadequacy.
E= Bourgois> Studied Latino + African-American drug dealers. Understandable that the youths in these subcultures + gangs did not work for minimum wage when there was a million-dollar industry on their doorstep.
E= Cohen ignores female delinquency + neglects police stereotyping.
P= An alternative status hierarchy
E= This delinquent subculture reverses the norms + values of mainstream culture, offering positive rewards (status) to those who are the most deviant.
E= Reggie Yates documentary> Boy joined a gang because he wanted to gain status + protection due to him being bullied.
E= Working-class boys actually conform at school despite eduction failure.
How does Murray (New Right) support?
Underclass> unemployed, lone parents, crime, sink house estates
Welfare has enabled single mothers to raise children without fathers in relative deprivation + without adequate socialisation.
Communities should be given the freedom to police themselves + drive out undesirables.
Example> NEETS= not in eduction, employment or training
Nearly 1 million people are classed as NEET in the UK
Evaluation of the New Right?
Marxist> there may be deeper structural causes of crime: we need to ask why there is an underclass in the first place.
Labelling perspective> the government, police + media may exaggerate + amplify the deviance of the subcultures + the underclass.
Crime prevention + control? (Durkheim)
P= Retributive justice
E= In traditional society, there is little specialisation + solidarity between individuals is based on their similarity to one another. This produces a strong collective conscience, which when offended, respondents with vengeful passion to repress the wrongdoer.
E= Hangings, stocks, burnt at the stake
E= Marxist + feminists> not all criminals are treated in the same ways. Punishment given is in the hands of those in power.
P= Restitutive justice
E= Aims to restore things to how they were before the offence, its motivation Is to restore society’s equilibrium.
E= fines, community service, rehabilitation
E= We need to deal with the reasons people commit in the first place as part of the punishment process
-Interactionist:
Social construction of crime
P= Labelling - primary and secondary deviance
E= Becker> Illustrates how crime is the product of social interaction by using the example of a fight between young people. In a low-income neighbourhood, a fight might be defined by the police as evidence of delinquency; in a wealthy area as evidence of high spirits.
Lamert> Primary deviance- deviance may be minor + doesn’t define who you are, secondary deviance- your deviance becomes your master status.
E= Whether a person is arrested, charged and convicted depends on factors such as: interactions with agencies of social control, appearance and background, situation + circumstances of the offence.
E= Tends to be deterministic, implying that once someone is labelled, a deviant career is inevitable.
P= Negotiation of justice
E= Cicourel> Typifications – Police share common-sense theories or stereotypes, of what the typical delinquent is like.
Class bias – Working class areas and people fitted the ‘typification’ most closely.
E= Lavinia Woodward- Pleaded guilty of stabbing her boyfriend but judge suspended her jail sentence, having said immediate custody would damage her career.
E= Self-report studies- to determine real extent of crime + deviance.
The deviancy amplification spiral
P= Moral panic
E= Moral panic- press exaggeration + distorted reporting of the events begin a moral panic, with growing public concern + with moral entrepreneurs calling for a 'crackdown’
Deviance amplification spiral- process in which the attempt to control deviance leads to an increase level of deviance.
Folk devils- opposite of the dark figure, ‘over labelled’ + over-exposed to the public view + the attentions of the authorities.
E= Fawbert> great hoodie panic that followed the ban of wearing hoodies in Blue water shopping centre. Word hoodie was used excessively in association with any negative behaviour by young people.
E= Realists argue that this theory ignores real victims of crime
Focus is on less serious crimes
Applying interactionism to crime prevention and control:
De-labelling?
Labelling and surveillance?
Reintegrative shaming?
P= de-labelling
E= Triplett> Shown how increases in the attempt to control + punish young offenders can have the opposite effect. We should avoid publicly naming + shaming offenders, since this is likely to create a perception of them as evil outsiders.
E= Criminal justice system- has re-labelled status offences such as truancy as more serious offences, resulting in much harsher sentences, this has resulted in an increase rather than a decrease of offending.
E= Goffman> prisons have their own subculture which provide training grounds for criminals to confirm the ‘criminal label’
P= Labelling and surveillance
E= Feeley + Simon> new ‘technology of power’ is emerging. It focuses on groups rather than individuals, its not interested in rehabilitating offenders, but simply in preventing them from offending.
E= Airport security screening checks are based on known offender ‘risk factors’- using information gathered about passengers e.g. age, sex, religion.
E=
P= Reintegrative shaming
E= Labels the act but not the actor- as if to say ‘ he has done a bad thing’ rather than ‘he is a bad person’.
Avoids stigmatising the offender as evil while at the same time making them aware of the negative impact of their actions.
E= Restorative justice- naming, shaming + facing the victim- Process which brings together victims of crime + the offenders responsible, usually in face-to-face meetings, to help repair the harm done.
E=
-Marxist:
Traditional marxism
P= Capitalism is criminogenic- values are manipulated and laws created to aid capitalism.
E= Capitalism is a social and economic system in which the pursuit of profit leads to crime and criminal behaviour.
Althusser> Ideological state apparatus- socialisation into the ruling class ideology to maintain false class consciousness.
Repressive state apparatus- criminal justice system operates to ‘force’ people to support capitalism.
E= Fox hunting is associated with upper class whereas badger bating is associated with lower classes and badger bating was made illegal sooner.
Snider> ruling class crimes are often ‘hidden’.
E= Economically deterministic- are all laws for the bourgeoise?
P= Ideological function- capitalism causes greed
E= For Marxists, crime is inevitable because capitalism is criminogenic; but it’s very nature it causes crime- poverty may mean crime is the only way to survive, alienation and lack of control may lead to non-utilitarian crimes to release anger and frustration.
Gordon> Capitalism causes crime because it promotes values such as consumerism and materialism and encourages people to be greedy. Explains why poorer people commit crime because it creates a ‘culture of envy’- always want more.
E= Nike has a marketisation method where children want to buy because it will make them look cool, this leads to people robbing and stealing.
E= Inequality has increased but the crime rate has been falling, suggesting there is no link between inequality and crime.
Neo-Marxism
P= The capitalist system and its impact on labelling
E= Critical criminology is made up of traditional marxism- ideas about the unequal distribution of wealth and also interactionist- labelling theory, meaning of the deviant act.
Taylor et al> the new criminology, rejects the view that workers are driven to crime by economic necessity, instead they believe that crime is a voluntary act.
Criminals are not passive puppets, instead they are deliberately striving to change capitalism.
E= Gilroy> Crime by black people, particularly in the 1970s, was a form of political action representing a culture of resistance and oppressors in the form of police racism and harassment.
E= Feminists> gender blind or ‘male stream’
Left-realists> Doesn’t take crime seriously and ignores its effects on working class victims
P= Young people resist the dominant capitalist culture through deviance.
E= CCCS- Birmingham centre for contemporary cultural studies. Saw social class was crucial to influencing youth culture. Developed a specific explanation for the existence of subcultures among the working class.
Resistance- Hall and Jefferson> deviant subcultures could reject and resist the dominant, capitalist culture.
Exaggeration- Hebdige> subcultures exaggerated their style and leisure activities, resisting the boredom of their working class lives (drugs, fights).
E= 1970s Punks- Hebdige> punk was a form resistance to the dominant cultural values of British society, punks set out to deliberately shock the establishment and society.
E= Feminists> only focuses on deviant behaviour of boys
Functionalism> youth subcultures are functional for transition, not resistance subcultures.
Applying Marxism to crime prevention and control:
Punishment maintains the existing order of capitalism?
Surveillance is targeted on the working classes?
P= Punishment maintains the existing order of capitalism
E= To reduce causes of crime, politicians need to make structural adjustments to the organisations of capitalism.
Althusser> Punishments part of the ‘repressive state apparatus’- formal social control to maintain capitalism.
Rusche and Kirchheimer> Changes to forms of punishment over time are the result of the changing interests of the dominant class.
E= The US prison systems soaks up about 30-40% of the unemployed.
Transcarceration- Individuals become locked into as cycle of control, shifting between carceal agencies during their lives.
P= Surveillance is targeted on the working classes
E= Surveillance of the working class through: working class crime is given media headlines, working class crime is labelled, working class crime is over-reported and investigated.
E= Where as upper class crime is less likely to be reported in the media, upper class crime is ‘sanitised’ and labelled as accidents, upper class crime is complex and difficult to investigate.
-Postmodernism:
Why men are more likely to commit crime?
Messerschmidt> argues that masculinity is a social construct or ‘accomplishment’ and men have to constantly work at constructing and presenting it to others.
‘Accomplishing masculinity’ may be a challenge because there’s been a cultural shift- womens positions have changes (dual-earner household)
Lyng> edgework- boys are motivated by the pursuit of excitement and thrills rather than material gain. Pleasures of thrills and risk-taking.
Katz> there is a pleasure in committing crime but this must be placed in the context of masculinity in a postmodern world where traditional forms of masculinity have been lost.
-Right Realism:
Biological differences?
P= biological differences
E= Hernstein> biosocial theory of criminal behaviour- crime is caused by a combination of biological + social factors.
Biological differences make some people inately more strongly predisposed to commit crime than others.
E= Personality traits associated with crime- aggression, extroversion, risk taking
E= Environment has a greater impact on intelligence than genes eg) reading improves intelligence
Socialisation and the underclass?
P= socialisation and the underclass
E= Murray> crime rates are increasing because of a growing underclass or ‘new rabble’ who are defined by their deviant behaviour + who fail to socialise their children properly.
E= Sewell> poor socialisation in single parent families leads to deviance because they look up to the wrong role models
E= Ignores wider structural causes eg) poverty
Rational choice theory?
P= Rational choice theory
E= Clarke> the decision to commit crime is a choice based on a rational calculation of the likely consequences.
If the perceived rewards of crime outweigh the perceived costs then people will likely offend
E= Felson> routine activity- a crime occurs as part of everyday routines when there are three conditions present.
E= It overstates offenders’ rationality Irrational choices when intoxicated.
-Left Realism:
Relative deprivation?
P= Relative deprivation
E= Despite being more well off people are also more aware of relative deprivation because of the media and advertising. When combined with individualism this encourages crime.
E= Increased inequality between the rich and poor as well as increased individualism. Cultural inclusion through increased media.
E= Relative deprivation cannot fully explain crime because not all those who experience commit crime
Marginalisation?
P= Marginalisation
E= People recognise they have political and economic problems that need to be resolved, but those ‘in power’ do nothing to address these problems.
E= No organisation to represent the unemployed, limited organisations to represent youth.
E= Interactionists argue that because left realists rely on quantitative data from victim surveys
Subcultures?
P= Subcultures
E= Members of a subcultural group supports and rationalises their deviant behaviour some turn to crime but some turn to religion.
E= Deviant subcultures> gangs, anti-school subcultures and football hooligans
E= Fails to explain corporate crime which marxists argue is much more harmful
-Applying realism to crime prevention and control:
-Right realism:
Situational crime prevention?
P= Situational crime prevention
E= Preventing crime in particular locations rather than catching offenders and aims to make crime a less attractive choice for offenders (rational choice theory) rather than eliminating criminal behaviour through the improvement of society or the threat of punishment
E= Expensive neighbourhoods use CCTV, alarms, gates to prevent and reduce crime
E= Postmodernists> assumes offenders act rationally in choosing crime and derive some benefits from it
Environmental crime prevention?
P= Environmental crime prevention
E= Improving an environment to reduce crime.
Wilson and Kelling> if a broken window (a symbol for social disorder and lack of community concern) is not repaired, then others are likely to be broken and further neglect will follow.
E= Mayor Giuliani of New York implemented broken window thesis by getting rid and painting over graffiti in subway and this reduced violent crimes.
E= Displacement of crime
Marxists> ignores white collar crime and corporate crime (real cost)
Zero tolerance policing?
P= Zero tolerance policing
E= Linked to Hirschi’s control theory which suggests that individuals are encouraged to choose conformity over deviance and crime when there are strong social bonds integrating them into communities.
The focus is then on tighter family and community control and socialisation, to promote conformity and isolate deviant individuals through community pressures.
E= Neighbourhood watch> community controls through informal surveillance
E= Labelling theorists argue that zero tolerance policing can result in giving people who have committed minor offences criminal records.
-Left realism:
Improving policing and control?
P= Improving policing and control
E= Kinsey et al> suggest police needs to improve clear-up rates and to spend more time investigating crime to deter offenders and restore confidence among the public.
The lack of confidence in the police in deprived communities means the police often must resort to military styles of policing.
E= London Riots sparked due to shooting of Mark Duggan
E= They are ‘soft’ on crime as they focus too much on social causes and downplay the role of the offender ‘choosing’ to commit the crime.
Social and community crime prevention?
P= Social and community crime prevention
E= Social and community crime prevention strategies place the emphasis firmly on the potential offender and their social context.
Policies addressing social conditions (unemployment, poverty, poor housing) may have a crime prevention role.
E= Perry Pre-school project> project for disadvantaged black children. An experimental group 3-4 yrs old were offered a 2 year intellectual enrichment programme and received weekly home visits. By age 40, they had fewer lifetime arrests for violent crime, property and drugs, more had graduated from high school and were in employment.
E= Marxism> ignores white collar crime and corporate crimes.
