Chapter 1 - Introduction: Explaining Crime and Deviance Study Guide

Foundations of Criminology and the Sociology of Deviance

• Fascination with Crime and Deviance: Modern society exhibits a palpable and perennial interest in criminal and deviant behaviors, facilitated by the widespread accessibility of documentaries, news, and television shows via mobile devices and Wi-Fi connectivity.
• Core Conceptual Questions: To understand the subject, one must interrogate fundamental definitions, including:     * What is considered 'normal'?     * What constitutes a 'crime'?     * What is 'deviance'?     * How are individuals categorized as 'criminals' or 'deviants'?
• Key Assertions of the Framework:     * Crime and deviance are social constructs rather than objective realities.     * Explanations for these phenomena are best understood as competing theories.     * Social control—the responses to categorized behaviors—is inherently politicized.     * Behaviors receiving the harshest punishment are not necessarily those causing the greatest societal harm.
• The ABCs of Deviance: According to Adler and Adler ($2011$), deviance is analyzed through:     * Attitudes: Belief systems that diverge from the norm.     * Behaviours: Actions that violate social expectations.     * Conditions: Physical or social characteristics (e.g., disabilities or race) that result in social disapproval.
• Definitions of Criminology:     * Sutherland and Cressey ($1974$): Define criminology as the study of the processes of making laws, breaking laws, and reacting toward the breaking of laws.     * Textbook Expansion: This text shifts the focus from administrative law and order toward a critical sociology of deviance, breaking the discipline from the 'shackles' of legal codes to examine broader deviations from social norms.

Defining Social Norms

• Clinard's Definition ($1975$): Deviance is understood as "deviations from social norms which encounter disapproval."
• General Definition of Norms: Shared expectations of behavior indicating what is culturally, morally, and legally appropriate within a group or society.
• Functions of Norms:     * Prescriptive: Dictating what individuals should do.     * Proscriptive: Dictating what individuals should not do.
• Types of Norms according to William Graham Sumner ($1940$):     * Folkways: Informal social norms produced by the frequent repetition of petty acts. They result in "habit" for the individual and "custom" for the group. They exert a societal force that regulates day-to-day conduct.     * Mores: Norms containing elements of social philosophy, welfare, and morality. They are considered essential to the maintenance of 'civility' and order. Violation of mores often attracts stronger social disapproval.     * Legal Norms: Formal social norms reflected in legislation that attract sanctions from authorities (e.g., police).
• Institutional Norms Examples:     * Education: Informal norms like raising a hand to speak or not interrupting others.     * Religion: Mores regarding sex outside marriage, abortion, or sexual orientation. Sanctions include penance or excommunication handed down by figures like imams, priests, or rabbis.
• Contestation of Norms: In pluralist liberal societies like Australia, norms are rarely based on total consensus. Legal norms and religious norms may conflict (e.g., sex outside marriage is legal in Australia but may be a 'sin' in religious contexts).

Case Study $1.1$: Sexual Orientation Laws and Social Construction

• Relativity of Crime: The legal status of same-sex relationships illustrates how crime is socially constructed across time and place.
• Historical Context in Australia:     * Colonies inherited British laws, specifically the British Act of $1898$.     * The crime of 'buggery' once carried penalties ranging from life imprisonment (NSW) to death (Victoria, if involving violence or persons under $14\, \text{years}$).     * Decriminalization: NSW decriminalized homosexual behavior between consenting adults in $1984$ via the Crimes (Amendment) Act $1984$ (NSW). The age of consent was initially unequal ($18\, \text{years}$) but was aligned to $16\, \text{years}$ in $2003$.
• Australian Marriage Law Postal Survey ($2017$):     * Participation rate: $79.5\%$.     * 'Yes' responses to same-sex marriage law changes: $61.6\%$.     * Legally recognized on $9\, \text{December}\; 2017$, redefining marriage from "a man and a woman" to "two people."
• Global Status: According to the ILGA report State-Sponsored Homophobia $2019$:     * $68$ out of $193\, \text{UN Member States}$ criminalize homosexuality.     * Sanctions range from imprisonment to the death penalty (e.g., Iran).

The Politics of Social Control

• Social Control Definition: The methods by which societies deal with norm violations to secure conformity. Includes formal (law) and informal (parental discipline) measures.
• Dynamics of Power: Norms involve 'subjects' (those determining the limits/sanctions) and 'objects' (the targets of sanctions).
• De-objectification: A process of deconstructing concepts like 'crime' to critique claims of neutrality. Critical criminologists argue crime is a politicized state-constructed category used for specific ends (Muncie $2001$).
• Inequality in Social Control: Giroux ($2014$) and Cohen ($1973$) argue that:     * Powerful entities (e.g., bankers committing 'economic mass destruction') often escape punishment.     * Dissent or protests by ordinary citizens are often met with high rates of imprisonment.

Social Contract Theory and Civil Society

• The Social Contract: A hypothetical agreement where individuals surrender some freedoms to a sovereign/majority in exchange for the protection of other rights.
• Thomas Hobbes ($1588$-$1679$):     * State of Nature: A chaotic condition of unbridled conflict where life is "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short."     * Sovereign Power: Hobbes argues for an absolute sovereign to overrule human 'passions' and prevent a return to the state of nature.
• John Locke ($1632$-$1704$):     * Law of Nature: Pre-political morality requiring individuals not to harm others' "life, health, liberty, and possessions."     * Institutions of Civil Society: Created to avoid continuous war. These include the Legislative (law creation), Judicial (adjudication), and Executive (enforcement) branches.     * Conditional Power: Unlike Hobbes, Locke argues the government's power is conditional. If it fails to protect natural rights or becomes a dictatorship, the people have the right to overthrow it.

Case Study $1.2$: Industrial Relations and Legal Obligation

• The Sally McManus Debate ($2017$): The ACTU Secretary suggested that it is justifiable to break the law when the law is "unjust."
• Specific Fines (Grocon vs. CFMEU):     * Grocon: Ordered to pay $\$250,000$ in $2013$ following a wall collapse that killed three people.     * CFMEU: Ordered to pay $\$3.55\, \text{million}$ in $2015$ for illegal industrial actions (strikes/blockades) at Grocon sites.     * Contention: Union leaders argue that fines for protesting safety are disproportionately higher than fines for workplace deaths.
• Political Obligation: Duncan Ivison ($2017$) explores the tension between legal and moral obligations. Civil disobedience involves willfully disobeying a law one views as unjust while being willing to suffer the consequences (e.g., imprisonment) to transform societal views.

Law and Order Commonsense

• Hogg and Brown ($1998$): Argue that public debate is often driven by 'commonsense' assumptions that do not require empirical verification and dismiss serious qualification.
• Elements of Commonsense Framework:     * Claims of 'soaring crime rates' (worse than ever).     * The 'victim's revenge' and critiquing courts for being 'soft on crime.'     * Demands for more police, more powers, and tougher penalties.     * Frequent comparisons with U.S. crime metrics.
• Uncivil Politics: The resort to violent or oppressive means of social control to 'protect' society, which risks destroying the civil fabric it intends to preserve.

Understanding Theory

• Theory Definition: A set of concepts providing an explanation for how phenomena work (e.g., why crime occurs).
• Implicit Theories: Based on personal experiences, common-sense, and prejudices. People often remain unaware of their underlying assumptions until challenged by alternatives (Johnson $1981$).
• Explicit Theories: Documented, conceptually clear, and subject to empirical testing. These serve as interpretive frameworks for civil discourse.
• Theoretical Overview of the Text:     * Individual-Level (Ch $2$): Views criminality as pathological/inherent in bodies or minds (leads to problematic interventions like sterilization).     * Social Ecology (Ch $3$): Focuses on place, neighborhood, and community-level factors.     * Strain/Opportunity (Ch $4$): Focuses on coping strategies and societal pressures.     * Symbolic Interactionism/Labelling (Ch $6$): Categories constructed through interactions with authority.     * Conflict/Gender (Ch $7$-$9$): Feminism and critical masculinities.     * Surveillance Society (Ch $10$): New dimensions of social control.     * Green Criminology (Ch $12$): Harms against the natural environment.     * Cultural Criminology (Ch $13$): Focuses on power/discourse (e.g., defining graffiti).