AQA A-Level Sociology: Exhaustive Crime and Deviance Revision Guide

Foundational Concepts in Crime and Deviance

Crime refers specifically to any act that violates a society's established laws and is punishable by the government. These acts are socially constructed, meaning their definitions are relative to a specific cultural time and place. Deviance, conversely, refers to behavior that is seen as wrong within a specific context. While a deviant act deviates from social norms, it may or may not be criminal.

Crime and deviance vary both temporally and spatially. Temporal variation refers to how definitions change over time; for example, homosexuality was illegal in the UK prior to $1967$, whereas now it is legal. Spatial variations refer to differences across locations, neighbourhoods, or countries, often influenced by poverty, policing strategies, and urbanization.

Sociologists identify four primary ways crime and deviance are socially constructed:

1. History: Acts like marital rape were not criminalized in the UK until $1991$.

2. Context: Wearing a bikini is acceptable on a beach but seen as deviant on a high street.

3. Culture: In China, leaving food on a plate signifies the host fed the guest well, whereas in the UK, it is often viewed as disrespectful.

4. Generation: Drinking alcohol is acceptable for adults but prohibited for those under $18$ in the UK.

Plummer distinguishes between societal deviance, which most members of society regard as wrong (e.g., murder, rape, child abuse), and situational deviance, where the act's status depends on the context (e.g., walking barefoot in a shop versus on a beach).

Systems of Social Control and Sanctions

Formal social control is the enforcement of accepted behavior by agents of the criminal justice system, such as police and prison officers. Informal social control is enforced by lay members of the public, including parents, teachers, and peers.

Social control is maintained through sanctions:

• Positive Sanctions: Rewards for good behavior, such as pay increases, school certificates, or MBAs.

• Negative Sanctions: Punishments for poor behavior, ranging from social booing and fines to imprisonment or the death penalty.

Functionalist Perspectives on Crime

Emil Durkheim argued that crime is normal and an integral part of all healthy societies. He introduced the concept of anomie, which refers to a state of normlessness or a breakdown in social order, typically during periods of rapid change. Durkheim posited that a functioning society shares a conscious collective (shared norms and values).

Functionalists identify five positive functions of crime:

1. Boundary Maintenance: Punishment reaffirms shared rules and reinforces social solidarity. An example is the One Love concert following the $2017$ Manchester Arena bombing.

2. Adaptation and Change: All social change begins with an act of deviance. Activists like Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King Jr. challenged outdated laws to spark legal equality.

3. Safety Valve: Davis argued prostitution act as a safety valve for male sexual frustration without threatening the nuclear family. Polsky argued pornography channels sexual desires away from adultery or assault.

4. Warning Device: Cohen suggested high rates of truancy warn policy makers that the education system is not functioning properly.

5. Licensed Deviance: Societies regulate misbehavior in specific contexts like carnivals, festivals, or university freshers' week to minimize serious impacts.

Merton’s Strain Theory

Merton argued that crime occurs when there is a poor fit (strain) between socially accepted goals (wealth and power in the American Dream) and the legitimate means of achieving them. This creates pressure to deviate, especially when American culture emphasizes winning "at any cost."

Merton identified five responses to strain:

1. Conformity: Accepting goals and achieving them legitimately (common among the middle class).

2. Innovation: Accepting goals but using illegitimate means like theft (common among the lower class).

3. Ritualism: Rejecting goals but following rules for their own sake (routine office workers).

4. Retreatism: Rejecting both goals and means (vagrants, chronic drunkards, drug addicts).

5. Rebellion: Replacing existing goals and means with new ones to bring about change (political radicals).

Subcultural Strain Theories

Subcultural theories view deviance as a product of delinquent subcultures with values differing from mainstream society. Albert Cohen found that much offending was non-utilitarian (vandalism/violence) rather than economically motivated. He argued working-class boys suffer from status frustration due to failing in the middle-class education system, leading them to invert traditional values.

Cloward and Ohlin identified three types of subcultures:

1. Criminal Subcultures: Provide an "apprenticeship" in utilitarian crime in stable neighborhoods with established criminal hierarchies (e.g., the Mafia).

2. Conflict Subcultures: Arise in areas of high population turnover and social disorganization, where gangs fight for "turf" or territory (e.g., inner-city gangs in London or Birmingham).

3. Retreatist Subcultures: Individuals who fail in both legitimate and illegitimate structures, retreating into drugs or alcohol (double failures).

Marxist Theory: Criminogenic Capitalism

Gordon argues that capitalism is inherently criminogenic because it is based on the exploitation of the working class. Poverty forces some to turn to crime for survival (rational choice), while advertising promotes a consumer culture leading to utilitarian crime. Alienation also drives non-utilitarian crimes like vandalism.

Corporate and White-Collar Crime:

• Occupational Crime: Committed by employees against employers for personal gain.

• Corporate Crime: Committed for the organization's goals (e.g., profit).

• Examples include the Tesco horsemeat scandal ($2013$), VW's exhaust emission disguise, and the Rana Plaza factory collapse in Bangladesh.

• Corporate crime is often invisible due to sanitized media language (e.g., "financial irregularities"), political focus on street crime, and legal complexity (e.g., the $7$-year Grenfell Tower investigation).

The Legal System and Selective Enforcement

Marxists view the criminal justice system as an Ideological State Apparatus (ISA). Chambliss argues that the protection of private property is the cornerstone of the legal system. This leads to selective enforcement, where street crimes by the poor are heavily prosecuted, while corporate tax avoidance (e.g., Apple using Irish tax deals) is treated with leniency.

Box argues that we are taught to fear a narrow image of the criminal (young, male, working-class, and black), while the state downplays other avoidable killings. An example is the death of Ella Kissi-Debrah, linked to illegal air pollution levels in South London; the state is often reluctant to classify such deaths as corporate murder to avoid responsibility.

Interactionism and Labeling Theory

Interactionists focus on why certain people are caught and labeled. Howard Becker stated that an act is only deviant because of society’s reaction to it. Moral Entrepreneurs (police, politicians, and the press) lead moral crusades to outlaw specific behaviors to increase their own power.

Piliavin and Briar identified three factors for punishment: previous history, circumstances (e.g., the BLM Bristol statue pulling), and the appearance/background of the offender. Cicourel argued police use typifications (stereotypes) to concentrate on working-class areas, creating a cycle that confirms their initial bias. He also noted that middle-class parents can often "negotiate" justice for their children.

Effects of Labeling: Lemert and Braithwaite

Lemert distinguished between:

• Primary Deviance: Acts not publicly labeled, having little impact on self-concept (e.g., fare dodging, "dodgy boxes" for streaming).

• Secondary Deviance: Acts resulting from internalizing a label. This can lead to a Master Status (controlling identity), as seen in Prince Andrew being labeled a pedophile over his royal duties.

Braithwaite identified two types of shaming:

• Disintegrative Shaming: The crime and criminal are labeled bad, leading to social exclusion.

• Reintegrative Shaming: Labeling the act but not the actor ("he did a bad thing" vs. "he is a bad person"), which helps prevent secondary deviance.

Realist Approaches: Right and Left Realism

Right Realism (influenced by the New Right) rejects poverty as a cause. It emphasizes:

1. Biological Differences: Aggression and low intelligence.

2. Socialization: Murray argues the underclass/lone-parent families fail to socialize children effectively.

3. Rational Choice: Clark suggests offenders perform a cost-benefit analysis. Felson emphasizes the need for a capable guardian to deter crime.

4. Solutions: Target hardening (locks, CCTV), Broken Windows Theory (addressing minor disorder to prevent serious crime), and Zero Tolerance policing (e.g., New York City).

Left Realism (Lea and Young) identifies three causes:

1. Relative Deprivation: Feeling disadvantaged compared to others, fueled by media-driven consumerism.

2. Marginalization: Groups lacking clear goals or representation (e.g., unemployed youth), leading to resentment.

3. Subcultures: A response to blocked opportunities while still desiring material success.

4. Solutions: Improved policing accountability, multi-agency approaches (schools, social services), and tackling structural causes like unemployment (e.g., the New Deal, Sure Start).

Crime Prevention Case Studies

• Meadwell Estate (Northumberland): Addressed rioting and burglary by increasing police presence (capable guardians), creating defensible space, and changing road layouts to limit escape routes. Resulted in a $70\%$ drop in utilitarian crime, though displacement was a concern.

• Port Authority Bus Terminal (NYC): Used situational crime prevention to modify entrances and bathrooms to reduce hiding spots. Crime was prevented rather than displaced.

• Displacement: Chen’s study of NYC subway robberies found that crackdowns simply moved crime to the streets above. Displacement can be spatial, temporal, target-based, tactical, or functional.

Victimology and Patterns of Victimization

Christie argues the "ideal victim" is a media construct (weak, innocent, blameless).

Positivist Victimology focuses on:

• Victim Precipitation: Wolfgang found $26\%$ of homicides in Philadelphia involved the victim using violence first.

• Victim Proneness: Von Hentig identified $13$ characteristics (young, female, old, immigrants, depressed, mentally deranged, acquisitive, dull, naive, minorities, lonesome/heartbroken, tormentor, and blocked).

Critical Victimology emphasizes structural factors (patriarchy, poverty) and the state's power to deny victim status. For instance, air pollution deaths are often not officially recognized to protect corporate interests.

Ethnicity and the Criminal Justice System

Official statistics show that the black community is $5$ to $7$ times more likely to be stopped and searched than the white community. The Macpherson Report ($1999$) investigated the murder of Stephen Lawrence and concluded the Metropolitan Police were guilty of institutional racism—a collective failure to provide professional service due to color or culture.

Processes of Criminalization include:

• Canteen Culture: Cynical and racist views reinforced among police recruits (as exposed in the BBC documentary "The Secret Policeman").

• Prosecution: BAME communities are more likely to opt for Crown Court trials due to mistrust of magistrates, often resulting in harsher sentences.

• Prison: One quarter of the prison population is black, despite being only $3\%$ of the general population.

Gender and Crime

Parsons' Sex Role Theory suggests men commit more crime because they are socialized into instrumental, risk-taking roles, while women are socialized into expressive, domestic roles.

Key Gender Concepts:

• Hegemonic Masculinity: Messerschmidt argues crime is a way of "doing masculinity." Winlow found that in Sunderland, the decline of industrial jobs led to "masculine careers" like drug dealing and bodybuilding.

• Chivalry Thesis: Pollack argues the CJS is biased in favour of women. For example, Lavinia Woodward was spared prison for stabbing her boyfriend to protect her career as a surgeon.

• Double Deviance: Women who commit crimes are punished for the crime and for violating gender norms (e.g., Vanessa George).

• Liberation Thesis: Adler argues that as women gain equality, their crime rates rise because they have more opportunity in the workplace and public sphere.

Globalization and Green Crime

Globalization (interconnectedness) has created a global criminal economy worth over $1$ trillion per annum (Castells). This includes arms trafficking, human trafficking, and cybercrime. Ian Taylor argues globalization has increased relative deprivation and allowed the powerful to move funds to avoid tax.

Green Crime (Zemiology - the study of harm):

• Primary Green Crime: Directly destroys resources (air pollution, deforestation). Delhi’s air pollution contributed to $150,000$ child deaths in $2019$.

• Secondary Green Crime: Breaking laws aimed at protecting the environment (e.g., the $1985$ bombing of the Greenpeace Rainbow Warrior by French agents).

• Beck identifies "manufactured risks" created by technology.

State Crime and Surveillance

State crime refers to illegal acts committed by or with the complicity of state agencies (war crimes, genocide, corruption). McLaughlin identifies four types: political, security forces, economic, and societal/cultural.

States often use a "spiral of denial" (Cohen):

1. It didn't happen.

2. It’s not what it looks like.

3. It was justified (national security).

Surveillance has evolved into "liquid surveillance" (Postmodernism), with the UK having up to $4.2$ million CCTV cameras. Foucault compared modern society to Bentham’s Panopticon—a prison where inmates behave because they believe they are being watched at all times.