Social Theories of Crime Notes

Social Explanations of Crime

  • Focus on society, culture, and environment.

  • Identify deviant/criminogenic places and relationships between people and their environment.

  • Shift from individual-level explanations.

Anomie Theory (Émile Durkheim)

  • Crime is normal; punishment is necessary for social cohesion.

  • Anomie: "Normlessness" during societal upheaval, weakened moral bonds.

  • Individual happiness depends on matching social goals with social means; strain occurs when this is not possible.

Strain Theory/General Strain Theory (Robert Merton, Robert Agnew)

  • Social goals are emphasized, but strain occurs when means are unavailable.

  • Unequal opportunity distribution.

  • People normally follow rules, but delinquency occurs when rules impede goal achievement.

  • 5 adaptations to strain:

    • Conformity: Achieving goals through legitimate means.

    • Innovation: Achieving goals through illegitimate means.

    • Ritualism: Pursuing legitimate means despite recognizing unattainable goals.

    • Retreatism: Rejecting goals and means, retreating from society.

    • Rebellion: Rejecting societal goals/means and substituting own.

  • Responding to strain involves enhancing opportunities (education, employment), re-socializing offenders, and addressing deviant norms.

Social Disorganisation Theory (Chicago School)

  • Inability of communities to realize common values/goals.

  • Sources: residential instability, ethnic heterogeneity, economic disadvantage.

  • Focuses on neighborhood social processes, not individual traits.

Differential Association (Edwin Sutherland)

  • Criminal behavior is learned through social interaction.

  • Criminal behavior is normal learned behavior.

  • Biology & psychology do not explain criminal behaviour.

  • Learning includes techniques, motives, rationalizations, and attitudes favorable to law violation.

  • Learning occurs within intimate groups.

Drift Theory (David Matza)

  • Delinquents drift between conventional and unconventional behaviors.

  • Juveniles neutralize moral values to commit delinquent acts.

  • Techniques of neutralization (Sykes & Matza):

    • Denial of responsibility, injury, victim

    • Condemnation of condemners

    • Appeal to higher loyalties

Labelling Theory

  • Crime is a social process; focuses on societal reaction to individuals.

  • The criminal justice system determines what counts as a crime.

  • Stigmatization and self-fulfilling prophecies result from labeling.

  • Steps: deviant act (primary deviance), public label, stigmatization, new identity formation, self-fulfilling prophecy, further criminal activity (secondary deviance), long-term criminal career.

Radical/Critical Criminologies

  • Critiques capitalist systems and inequality.

  • Crimes of the powerful vs. crimes of the less powerful.

Feminist Criminologies

  • Considers gender within crime; concerned with power.

  • Challenges male-centered criminology and addresses structural disadvantages faced by women.

Policy Implications

  • Community interventions, rehabilitative approaches, addressing gender dynamics, and challenging structural inequality.

Limitations of Social Theories

  • Overemphasis on structural factors, determinism, cultural bias, inadequate focus on the state, and overlooking individual choice.