Chapter 11 - Crime and Deviance

Deviance

Any behaviour, belief or condition that violates cultural norms in the society or group in which it occurs

-Can be understood to mean not only behaviours but also beliefs

An act becomes deviant when it is socially defined as such; ambiguous; varies with degrees

-All crimes are deviant, but not all deviancy is a crime

Social Control

Systematic practices developed by social groups to encourage conformity and to discourage deviance

-Done through socialization and formal sanctions

Crime

Is an act that violates criminal law and is punishable with fines, jail terms and other sanctions

-Juvenile Delinquency - Refers to a violating of the law by young people under the age of 18 (in Canada)

Functionalist Perspective on Deviance

Functionalist perspective believes that, according to Durkheim, only excessive levels of deviance can actually disrupt society

Strain Theory

Opportunity Theory

Control Theory

Learning Theory

Functionalist - Strain Theory

People feel strain when they are exposed to cultural goals that they are unable to obtain because they do not have access to culturally approved means of achieving those goals

-Results in us doing anything, including deviant behaviours to achieve these goals

-RK Merton

Opportunity Theory

Illegitimate Opportunity Structures - For deviance to occur, people must have access to illegitimate opportunity structures - circumstances that provide an opportunity for people to acquire through illegitimate activity what they cannot get through legitimate activities

Learning Theory

Part of the functionalist perspective, proposes that people learn from others to act in deviant ways

Illegitimate Structures - Subcultures

Criminal - Focus on economic gain and includes theft, extortion and drug dealing

Conflict - Groups that fight over territory and adopt a value system of toughness, courage and status enhancing qualities

Retreatist - Those who avoid mainstream society and adopt alternative lifestyles;

-Example; Destructive cults like the “solar temple”

Control Theory

Deviant behaviour is minimized when people have strong bonds that bind them to families, peers, religious organizations and other institutions

-Social Bond Theory - Probability of deviant behaviour increases when a person’s ties to society are weakened or broken

-Social bonding consists of;

• Attachment (bonds to people)

• Commitment to rules and regulation

• Involvement in conventional activities

• In the legitimacy of conventional values or norms

Symbolic Interactionist Perspective

Differential Associations Theory

-individuals have a greater tendency to deviate from societal norms wen they frequently associated with persons who favor deviance over conformity

-Likelihood increases through frequency intense and long lasting interactions with others violate rules

• E.g. subcultural groups in schools

Labelling Theory

-Deviants are those people who have been successfully labeled as such by others; directly related to the power and status of those persons who do labelling

-Primary Deviance - Initial acts of rule breaking

-Secondary Deviance - occurs when a person who has been labeled deviant accepts the new identity and continues the behaviour

Saints vs Roughnecks - Labelling

Group called Saints and group called Roughnecks committed crimes, but only the roughnecks were punished for it

-Demonstrates how labelling can lead to us believing that they’re deviant

Moral Entrepreneurs 

Persons with both power and status

-Person who uses their own views of right and wrong toe stablish rules and label others as deviant

-Moral entrepreneurs often create “moral crusades”, public and media awareness campaigns that help generate public and politicail support for their causes

Examples;

-Mothers against drunk driving

-Campaigns against abortion, prostitutions and child abuse

-2003 example; Roman Catholic, Evangelicals and muslim/sikh leaders united against gay marriage

Conflict Perspective

Lifestyles considered deviant by political and economic elites are defined as illegal

-Who has the power to define, enforce and punish crime/deviance?

-Marginalized commit crime in order to survive

-Law protects the interests of the affluent and the powerful

Feminist Perspective

To examine the relationship between gender, deviance and crime

Various nuances of feminist theory;

-Liberal Feminism - Women’s deviance and crime as a rational response to oppression and discrimination

-Radical Feminism - Patriarchy keeps women tied to family and home

• Ex; Prostitution, women are more likely to be charged

• Believes that there should be no distinction of male/female in society

-Socialist Feminism - Authors concede that woman are exploited by capitalism and patriarchy because women, more than men, have low-paying jobs they become involved in prostitution and shoplifting

-Add nuance due to class, race, ethnicity, etc

Crime Classifications and Statistics

-How the law classifies crime

-How sociologists classify crime

-Crime statistics

-Street crime and criminals 

How the law classifies crime

Indictable crimes - includes serious crimes such as homicide, sexual assault, robbery, and break and entry

Summary Conviction Offenses - relatively minor offences including fraudently obtaining food from a restaurant, causing a disturbance, or committing an indecent act 

How sociologists classify a crime

Street Crime

Occupational/Corporate Crime

Organized Crime

Political Crime

Street Crime

That which includes all violent crime, certain property crime, and certain moral crimes

-Examples; robbery, assault, break and enter

-Several types;

• Violent - Force against others, produces most anxiety, victims are physically injured, victimizers; intimate persons

• Property - Break and entry, theft, arson, vehicle theft

• Moral - Illegal action, voluntary engaged in by individuals; prostitution, gambling, illegal drugs/pornography

Occupational and Corporal Crime

Occupational - Consists of illegal activities committed by people in the course of their employment; a violation of a position of trust in business or government

Corporate - Illegal acts committed by corporate employers on behalf of the corporation and with its support, e.g., Enron corporation in Houston

-Costs; Exceeds that of “Street Crime”, tax evasion costs 30 billion dollars a year in Canada

-Calgary Bre-x gold mining lost 5 billion dollars of share holder investments, geologist had salted core samples with gold

Organized Crime

A business operation that supplies illegal goods and sources for profit

-E.g; Drug trafficking, prostitution, money laundering, etc

Elements; Not a centrally control organization; demand for cheap goods, deadly nature (ex; clash between rival cartel groups)

Political Crimes

Refers to illegal or unethical acts involving the misuse of power by government officials, or illegal or unethical acts perpetrated against the government by outsiders to make a political statement, undermine the government or over-throw it

-State officials may use their position to engage in graft through bribery, kick backs or “insider deals”

-Costly to tax payers

-Some use these methods to hang onto power

Crime Statistics

Most of our crime statistics come from the Canadian Uniform Crime Reports (CUCR) from the Canadian centre of justice stats from statistics Canada

-Different actions can change crime statistics

Examples;

-More police presence in one area = more crime being recorded, leading to an increase in the crime statistics

-Decriminalization of marijuana resulted in reports of drug cases decreasing, but not because there were a fewer amount of drugs but because of a change in classification

Weakness of Official Statistics

-Police statistics underreport the actual amount of crime

-Reporting of crime in inconsistent from place to place and from time to time

-Crimes committed by persons of highest SES are routinely handled by administrative or quasi-judicial bodies or by civil courts

Victimization Surveys

Attempts to fill the gap

-Self-reported data have shown only small report of SA is reported

-Value;

• Additional Information

• With both kinds of statistics, a truer picture of the reality of crime is possible

Criminal Justice System

Includes the police, courts and prisons

Police - They are the concrete extension of the state to provide social order

-This is extended to maintain peace in the community

Court - They decide the guilt or innocence of those accused of committing a crime

-process;

• Prosecutor - A lawyer who represents the state

• Defense Lawyer - Asserts that the accused (the defendant) is innocent

• Judge (or jury) - Final decision as to the guilt or innocence of the defendant 

Punishment - Any action designed to deprive a person of things of value (ie, liberty) because of some offence the person is thought to have committed

Function of Prisons

Retribution - Imposes a penalty on the offender

Social Protection - In prison, he or she cannot commit crime anymore

Rehabilitation - Seeks to return offenders to the community as law abiding citizens

Deterrence - Seeks to reduce criminal activity by instilling a fear of punishment

Restorative Justice

Seeks to return the focus of the justice system to repairing the harm that has been done to the victim and the community

Elements;

-Involvement of the victim and other members of the community as active members in the process

-To reconcile offenders with those they have harmed

-Roots in traditional societies

-Some aboriginal communities use ‘circle sentence’ - bringing the offender, the victim and the community together

Some current attempts;

-Victim-Offender reconciliation

-Family-group conferencing; for young people linked to the victim and the family members

Community Corrections

Shifts responsibility for corrections back to the community and minimizes the separation of the offender from society at a number of different stages in the correctional process (e.g., house arrest, group home)

Deviance and Crime in the Future

Present system of crime is inadequate;

-More structural solutions like;

• Better education and jobs

• Affordable housing

• More equality

• Less discrimination

• Socially productive activities

Criminologists

Those that study criminal behaviour

Victimless Crimes

-Often referred to as “crimes involving morality”, include the exchange of illegal goods or services such as in drug use, prostitution and online gambling

Using Deterrence

Deterrence uses punishment in order to prevent crime requiring three things;

-Promptness - Punishment should occur very close in time to when the crime happened to ensure association between the act and the consequence

-Severity - Punishment must be severe enough to outweigh the benefits of the crime

-Certainty - There must be a high probability that an offender will be caught and that the punishment will be carried out

Views on Legislation

Consensual View of Law - Is that behaviours legislated against in criminal law are those that most people agree should be legislated against

Conflict View - Argues that the ruling class creates and uses the law to serve its own interests

Interactionist View - Proposes that legislation emerges from interactions between special interest groups and powerful groups (ie, the government)