Crime Deviance and Social Control - Theorists
Crime- It is an act that breaks any written, formal or agreed rules/ laws within society.
Deviance - An act or behaviour that is out of place and is viewed as wrong but not illegal.
Social Control - the formal or informal ways in which power is exerted over society or a group.
Formal Social Control - Any rules that are written i.e Police, courts, Teachers.
Informal Social Control - Rules that are not written but agreed upon within society. i.e. parents, friends, and family.
Laws/Policy
keywords
Theory
quotation
criticisms
Functionalists:
Durkheim
Merton
Durkheim - He argues small amounts of crime are required in order for society to function and maintain boundaries. (Value Consensus). Crime is inevitable and not everyone can fully integrate into society because of this deviant and criminal activities can remind individuals about social solidarity. Without this Boundary Maintenance, crime rates may increase as individuals may feel like they face anomie.
Merton - Further evaluated Durkhiem’s idea. Crime occurs because of the strain individuals face when trying to achieve their ascribed goals. As a result of this, he identified 5 different ways in which people respond to strain (Strain Theory): Conformity, Innovation, ritualism, Retreatism, and Rebellion. Conformity - is an individual who abides by the rules and follows their ascribed path to achieve their goals. Innovation- Individuals who do not have the means for success, as a result, must find other methods in which to achieve their goals often through crime. Ritualism - Individuals who accept they will not achieve their goals but continue the motions of working. Retreatism - People who give up altogether and often ‘drop out’ of society and usually turn to drugs and petty crimes to fund their lifestyle. Rebellion - Individuals who refuse to accept their ascribed goals and choose a completely different path which often includes crime.
Durkheim does not explain why people commit crimes in the first place or why some have high crime rates.
Merton’s strain theory is too deterministic as he assumes individuals’ reasons for crime and ignores the fact that people do commit crimes in groups.
They ignore the negative impacts on the victims of crime.
Merton does not explain why certain groups are more likely to commit crimes than others.
Merton does not explain why individuals who have achieved their ascribed goals commit crimes.
Subcultural theories: (Functionalists)
Cohen
Cloward and Ohlin
matza
Cohen - identified that w/c boys often face status frustration as they lack the opportunity to achieve their desired goals. Because of the status frustration they face, they create a new set of rules they follow which often counter society’s rules (Deviant Subculture). With this, they are able to experience alternative forms of status, respect, and power from their peers. This combatted the criticism that functionalists ignore why people may commit crimes in groups. This theory assumes that all w/c boys who face status frustration turn to crime which just isn’t true.
Cloward and Ohlin - created an alternative view to Cohen, they argue that W/C youths respond differently depending on the situation and also suffer from a lack of opportunity they identified Legitimate and Illegitimate opportunities. Illegitimate opportunities are broken down into 3 separate subcultures: Criminal, Conflict, and Retreatist. Criminal Subculture- Individuals turn to crime to fund their lifestyle, power, and influence. Conflict Subculture - There are high levels of instability as theres often conflict between groups (gangs) leading to a lack of social cohesion making young people often turn to crime to gain respect and power from their peers. Their theory ignores the fact individuals often move in and out of these subcultures.
Matza- 1964 criticises Subcultural theories from creating the idea that deviant people are differnt to everyone else almost isolating them from society. Mtaza argues that instead these subcultures are just like any others, they use ‘techniques of neutralisation’ to justify their actions. He also believes there is a thing called ‘delinquency drift’ meaning individuals do not stay deliquent forever as they begin to settle and establish themselves as adults in mainstream society.
New Right Theory
Murray
This theory was developed based upon the functionalist perspective and believes that there are those who do not work and choose not to and this group’s views counter the rest of society ‘The Underclass’.
Charles Murray - The underclass is responsible for the majority of crimes committed within society. he argues the state has become over-generous making individuals reliant on benefits and welfare which encourages people to turn to crime instead of getting jobs. They are criticised by left realists for failing to realise some people face inequalities they cannot escape for example overcoming poverty via education.
Marxism
They argue that society is criminogenic because of the capitalist structure. (This is where because of the structure of society, it creates crime.) They also believe just like functionalists, that crime is based upon structural issues or reasons. However, they would also argue that is based on the inequalities within the capitalist system. As capitalism creates competition and greed it leads to people committing crimes in order to stay up-to-date with trends and be ahead of the curve.
Snider- argues that there are no laws that prevent the interest of big businesses (ie finding ways to avoid taxes or having too much money). He also believes that big businesses are required in a capitalist society or it would not function properly. Snider also argues that crime is committed at all levels (social classes) within society, but crimes committed by the working class, are most commonly identified but white-collar crimes committed by the ruling and upper class do more damage to society than an act such as burglary.
NeoMarxists
they argue that ideas also greatly impact society, not just the economy. NeoMarxists argue that an individual has a choice whether to commit a crime. This theory fails to look at the impacts of gender and ethnicity in this theory.
Hall- he is a neo-Marxist and interactionist he did a study on moral panic and how the media portrays groups surrounding mugging in the 1970s. Hall identified how many newspapers repeatedly reported mugging by young black men creating an idea of an ‘enemy within’. he argued that the newspapers creating fear surrounding young black men, created social solidarity as it gave society a common enemy. However, this also created divisions leading to policy changes i.e. stop and search which was unfair as it was mostly used on young black men. This created a societal label on black youths leading to deviancy amplification leading to the ‘race riots’ in 1980. Hall talks about how not just economic issues but also labelling, and the impacts of society’s reaction, create a spiral showing the ‘social theory’ of deviancy where he created a table over an individual becoming a criminal or a victim. Traditional Marxists argue Hall’s theory is too far removed from the Marxist perspective. Feminist criminologists argue Hall like many others, ignores women causing crime and how female criminals are treated by the media.
Interactionism
They argue it is more important to consider how people are considered deviant and the effect of being labelled as such. They argue that everyone commits deviant acts and they consider at what point an act an individual commits is labelled as deviant.
Becker - He argues an act is only deviant when it is labelled as such. Groups such as mass media and police have the power to create or enforce rules making them moral entrepreneurs. Becker says that agencies of social control such as the police use their own discretion and selective judgement whether or not to deal with illegal or deviant behaviour creating selective law enforcement. The police operate with pre-existing judgements from stereotyping and their judgements about criminals meaning they use their selective law enforcement based upon judgements by the police instead of reflections of society.
Lemert - He identifies two types of deviance, Primary and Secondary deviance. Primary deviance is the process of someone committing a deviant act but not getting caught. Secondary deviance is when an offender is caught and labelled as deviant and publically exposed (often by the police or media).
Circourel - he added to Lemert’s theory. He argues that other agencies of social control are also reinforced by bias an example of this includes probation officers believing that youths who commit crimes must come from dysfunctional homes, families or poverty and as a result of this they are more likely to commit crimes in the future. He also argues that how an individual interprets police statistics can be damaging and are not valid as the processes used to create these statistics are not accurate nor representative of the population so this should be investigated and changed.
Left Realism
It’s a response to the traditional Marxist theory which was created in the 1980s. They highlight how crime usually affects the poor. They believe that structural inequality is to blame as to why crime occurs, to prevent this crime, they believe that there needs to be greater social equality and a better sense of community.
Lea and Young - they argue there are 3 reasons for crime:
Relative deprivation - How individuals compare their situation to others.
subcultures - Many form in the w/c where they form groups and may start to see deviant behaviour as normal.
Marginalisation - where people find themselves on the edge of society so they find it hard to access their rights and the available services making crime seem more acceptable as a result.
Lea and Young believe to prevent crime and fear of crime, there needs to be an increase in trust between the public and police. They also believe communities should become more involved with policing with concepts such as neighbourhood watch. For long-term goals, they argue there should be a greater understanding of the victims so society understands more what happens to them. Like right realists, they argue most victims come from the working class.
They fail to recognise that not all W/C or marginalised groups respond to their situation by committing crimes. They also fail to recognise the crimes committed by the rich. They also focus too much on the victim’s evidence of crime.
Right realism
It is similar to the New Right Ideology, they believe that people act based on selfish motives and debate whether or not to commit a crime depending on their likelihood of getting caught.
Social order is necessary within society and value consensus is essential over the basis of what is right and wrong.
The state plays a massive role in reinforcing social order and they need to continue with social policies and laws.
They argue that there will always be crime but there is no reason to look for structural causes, instead, they should look into ways to prevent and reduce crime.
Charles Murray - He argues that the breakdown of other institutions such as the family with the lack of a male role model increases the chances of those children committing a crime due to inadequate socialisation and an ‘over-generous’ welfare state.
Right Realists argue to combat this, they need to over-punish offenders so it will act as a deterrent to other individuals who may commit crimes.
They had a wide range of strategies to prevent crime :
Military style of socialisation of the younger generations
Situational Crime Prevention is where things are introduced to deter individuals from committing crimes.
involve the local community in policing the locals.
Right realists assume all people are selfish. They also ignore structural inequalities that may lead to crime. They ignore crimes that are not pre-meditated for example crimes committed out of anger, passion or that have no momentary reward as they believe they are all rational and pre-meditated. Just like left realists, they ignore crimes committed by the rich and powerful.
Postmodernism
Just like left and right realism, this theory was also created in the 1980s. They believe with the changes within society, older theories can no longer be used to describe and understand society and why people commit crimes. In contemporary society, there is no one singular reason why individuals commit crimes. Postmodernists like right realists, do not look for structural reasons for crimes being committed. They believe that today, society is fragmented due to increased individualism, diversity, and fluidity within institutions and is useful to think about reasons why people commit crimes.
Postmodernist approach to crime:
They argue crime is no longer a useful concept as it is based upon socially constructed ideas and behaviours, which many laws are outdated and not applicable.
People no longer have a strong sense of social cohesion and will place themselves above their community.
community ties and social norms are becoming weaker creating a wider range of social norms that co-exist.
Henry and Milovanovic - That the idea of ‘crime’ should be replaced with Social Harm. they argue that crime only reflects a small amount of legally defined behaviours which is no longer useful when dealing with the wide range of deviant behaviours within the ever-changing, diverse social world.
Postmodernists argue that the future of crime prevention will be funded publically and privately.
People are now being controlled by the increasing amounts of information and data being collected.
Bauman and Lyon - created the idea of liquid surveillance (constantly being monitored for what we do) this can be shown via our bank transactions, locations, CCTV etc.
Postmodernists do not address the major reasons for many crimes which is often structural inequality. They fail to explain why lots of people don’t commit crimes. They don’t offer any suggestions as to how crime can be measured. They also ignore issues such as selective law enforcement and why certain groups are over-represented in statistics.
Crime- It is an act that breaks any written, formal or agreed rules/ laws within society.
Deviance - An act or behaviour that is out of place and is viewed as wrong but not illegal.
Social Control - the formal or informal ways in which power is exerted over society or a group.
Formal Social Control - Any rules that are written i.e Police, courts, Teachers.
Informal Social Control - Rules that are not written but agreed upon within society. i.e. parents, friends, and family.
Laws/Policy
keywords
Theory
quotation
criticisms
Functionalists:
Durkheim
Merton
Durkheim - He argues small amounts of crime are required in order for society to function and maintain boundaries. (Value Consensus). Crime is inevitable and not everyone can fully integrate into society because of this deviant and criminal activities can remind individuals about social solidarity. Without this Boundary Maintenance, crime rates may increase as individuals may feel like they face anomie.
Merton - Further evaluated Durkhiem’s idea. Crime occurs because of the strain individuals face when trying to achieve their ascribed goals. As a result of this, he identified 5 different ways in which people respond to strain (Strain Theory): Conformity, Innovation, ritualism, Retreatism, and Rebellion. Conformity - is an individual who abides by the rules and follows their ascribed path to achieve their goals. Innovation- Individuals who do not have the means for success, as a result, must find other methods in which to achieve their goals often through crime. Ritualism - Individuals who accept they will not achieve their goals but continue the motions of working. Retreatism - People who give up altogether and often ‘drop out’ of society and usually turn to drugs and petty crimes to fund their lifestyle. Rebellion - Individuals who refuse to accept their ascribed goals and choose a completely different path which often includes crime.
Durkheim does not explain why people commit crimes in the first place or why some have high crime rates.
Merton’s strain theory is too deterministic as he assumes individuals’ reasons for crime and ignores the fact that people do commit crimes in groups.
They ignore the negative impacts on the victims of crime.
Merton does not explain why certain groups are more likely to commit crimes than others.
Merton does not explain why individuals who have achieved their ascribed goals commit crimes.
Subcultural theories: (Functionalists)
Cohen
Cloward and Ohlin
matza
Cohen - identified that w/c boys often face status frustration as they lack the opportunity to achieve their desired goals. Because of the status frustration they face, they create a new set of rules they follow which often counter society’s rules (Deviant Subculture). With this, they are able to experience alternative forms of status, respect, and power from their peers. This combatted the criticism that functionalists ignore why people may commit crimes in groups. This theory assumes that all w/c boys who face status frustration turn to crime which just isn’t true.
Cloward and Ohlin - created an alternative view to Cohen, they argue that W/C youths respond differently depending on the situation and also suffer from a lack of opportunity they identified Legitimate and Illegitimate opportunities. Illegitimate opportunities are broken down into 3 separate subcultures: Criminal, Conflict, and Retreatist. Criminal Subculture- Individuals turn to crime to fund their lifestyle, power, and influence. Conflict Subculture - There are high levels of instability as theres often conflict between groups (gangs) leading to a lack of social cohesion making young people often turn to crime to gain respect and power from their peers. Their theory ignores the fact individuals often move in and out of these subcultures.
Matza- 1964 criticises Subcultural theories from creating the idea that deviant people are differnt to everyone else almost isolating them from society. Mtaza argues that instead these subcultures are just like any others, they use ‘techniques of neutralisation’ to justify their actions. He also believes there is a thing called ‘delinquency drift’ meaning individuals do not stay deliquent forever as they begin to settle and establish themselves as adults in mainstream society.
New Right Theory
Murray
This theory was developed based upon the functionalist perspective and believes that there are those who do not work and choose not to and this group’s views counter the rest of society ‘The Underclass’.
Charles Murray - The underclass is responsible for the majority of crimes committed within society. he argues the state has become over-generous making individuals reliant on benefits and welfare which encourages people to turn to crime instead of getting jobs. They are criticised by left realists for failing to realise some people face inequalities they cannot escape for example overcoming poverty via education.
Marxism
They argue that society is criminogenic because of the capitalist structure. (This is where because of the structure of society, it creates crime.) They also believe just like functionalists, that crime is based upon structural issues or reasons. However, they would also argue that is based on the inequalities within the capitalist system. As capitalism creates competition and greed it leads to people committing crimes in order to stay up-to-date with trends and be ahead of the curve.
Snider- argues that there are no laws that prevent the interest of big businesses (ie finding ways to avoid taxes or having too much money). He also believes that big businesses are required in a capitalist society or it would not function properly. Snider also argues that crime is committed at all levels (social classes) within society, but crimes committed by the working class, are most commonly identified but white-collar crimes committed by the ruling and upper class do more damage to society than an act such as burglary.
NeoMarxists
they argue that ideas also greatly impact society, not just the economy. NeoMarxists argue that an individual has a choice whether to commit a crime. This theory fails to look at the impacts of gender and ethnicity in this theory.
Hall- he is a neo-Marxist and interactionist he did a study on moral panic and how the media portrays groups surrounding mugging in the 1970s. Hall identified how many newspapers repeatedly reported mugging by young black men creating an idea of an ‘enemy within’. he argued that the newspapers creating fear surrounding young black men, created social solidarity as it gave society a common enemy. However, this also created divisions leading to policy changes i.e. stop and search which was unfair as it was mostly used on young black men. This created a societal label on black youths leading to deviancy amplification leading to the ‘race riots’ in 1980. Hall talks about how not just economic issues but also labelling, and the impacts of society’s reaction, create a spiral showing the ‘social theory’ of deviancy where he created a table over an individual becoming a criminal or a victim. Traditional Marxists argue Hall’s theory is too far removed from the Marxist perspective. Feminist criminologists argue Hall like many others, ignores women causing crime and how female criminals are treated by the media.
Interactionism
They argue it is more important to consider how people are considered deviant and the effect of being labelled as such. They argue that everyone commits deviant acts and they consider at what point an act an individual commits is labelled as deviant.
Becker - He argues an act is only deviant when it is labelled as such. Groups such as mass media and police have the power to create or enforce rules making them moral entrepreneurs. Becker says that agencies of social control such as the police use their own discretion and selective judgement whether or not to deal with illegal or deviant behaviour creating selective law enforcement. The police operate with pre-existing judgements from stereotyping and their judgements about criminals meaning they use their selective law enforcement based upon judgements by the police instead of reflections of society.
Lemert - He identifies two types of deviance, Primary and Secondary deviance. Primary deviance is the process of someone committing a deviant act but not getting caught. Secondary deviance is when an offender is caught and labelled as deviant and publically exposed (often by the police or media).
Circourel - he added to Lemert’s theory. He argues that other agencies of social control are also reinforced by bias an example of this includes probation officers believing that youths who commit crimes must come from dysfunctional homes, families or poverty and as a result of this they are more likely to commit crimes in the future. He also argues that how an individual interprets police statistics can be damaging and are not valid as the processes used to create these statistics are not accurate nor representative of the population so this should be investigated and changed.
Left Realism
It’s a response to the traditional Marxist theory which was created in the 1980s. They highlight how crime usually affects the poor. They believe that structural inequality is to blame as to why crime occurs, to prevent this crime, they believe that there needs to be greater social equality and a better sense of community.
Lea and Young - they argue there are 3 reasons for crime:
Relative deprivation - How individuals compare their situation to others.
subcultures - Many form in the w/c where they form groups and may start to see deviant behaviour as normal.
Marginalisation - where people find themselves on the edge of society so they find it hard to access their rights and the available services making crime seem more acceptable as a result.
Lea and Young believe to prevent crime and fear of crime, there needs to be an increase in trust between the public and police. They also believe communities should become more involved with policing with concepts such as neighbourhood watch. For long-term goals, they argue there should be a greater understanding of the victims so society understands more what happens to them. Like right realists, they argue most victims come from the working class.
They fail to recognise that not all W/C or marginalised groups respond to their situation by committing crimes. They also fail to recognise the crimes committed by the rich. They also focus too much on the victim’s evidence of crime.
Right realism
It is similar to the New Right Ideology, they believe that people act based on selfish motives and debate whether or not to commit a crime depending on their likelihood of getting caught.
Social order is necessary within society and value consensus is essential over the basis of what is right and wrong.
The state plays a massive role in reinforcing social order and they need to continue with social policies and laws.
They argue that there will always be crime but there is no reason to look for structural causes, instead, they should look into ways to prevent and reduce crime.
Charles Murray - He argues that the breakdown of other institutions such as the family with the lack of a male role model increases the chances of those children committing a crime due to inadequate socialisation and an ‘over-generous’ welfare state.
Right Realists argue to combat this, they need to over-punish offenders so it will act as a deterrent to other individuals who may commit crimes.
They had a wide range of strategies to prevent crime :
Military style of socialisation of the younger generations
Situational Crime Prevention is where things are introduced to deter individuals from committing crimes.
involve the local community in policing the locals.
Right realists assume all people are selfish. They also ignore structural inequalities that may lead to crime. They ignore crimes that are not pre-meditated for example crimes committed out of anger, passion or that have no momentary reward as they believe they are all rational and pre-meditated. Just like left realists, they ignore crimes committed by the rich and powerful.
Postmodernism
Just like left and right realism, this theory was also created in the 1980s. They believe with the changes within society, older theories can no longer be used to describe and understand society and why people commit crimes. In contemporary society, there is no one singular reason why individuals commit crimes. Postmodernists like right realists, do not look for structural reasons for crimes being committed. They believe that today, society is fragmented due to increased individualism, diversity, and fluidity within institutions and is useful to think about reasons why people commit crimes.
Postmodernist approach to crime:
They argue crime is no longer a useful concept as it is based upon socially constructed ideas and behaviours, which many laws are outdated and not applicable.
People no longer have a strong sense of social cohesion and will place themselves above their community.
community ties and social norms are becoming weaker creating a wider range of social norms that co-exist.
Henry and Milovanovic - That the idea of ‘crime’ should be replaced with Social Harm. they argue that crime only reflects a small amount of legally defined behaviours which is no longer useful when dealing with the wide range of deviant behaviours within the ever-changing, diverse social world.
Postmodernists argue that the future of crime prevention will be funded publically and privately.
People are now being controlled by the increasing amounts of information and data being collected.
Bauman and Lyon - created the idea of liquid surveillance (constantly being monitored for what we do) this can be shown via our bank transactions, locations, CCTV etc.
Postmodernists do not address the major reasons for many crimes which is often structural inequality. They fail to explain why lots of people don’t commit crimes. They don’t offer any suggestions as to how crime can be measured. They also ignore issues such as selective law enforcement and why certain groups are over-represented in statistics.
