crime & deviance (4)

Q1: outline & explain two ways in which the concept of masculinity can be used to explain why males commit more crimes than females

  1. men feel pressure to feel dominance, control, toughness - hegemonic masculinity - crime is a resource to achieve this if legitimate means aren’t available (Messerschmidt)

  2. decline in traditional manual labour jobs - men now in the UK feel lost - they have utilised the growth of the public sector to exercise their masculinity - allows them to be violent/aggressive/take charge (Winlow)

Q2: outline & explain two ways in which the state is able to conceal of legitimate its crimes against human rights

  1. states use techniques of neutralisation to explain away their crimes - they change/manipulate the language to justify it - deny the victim, appeal to a higher loyalty (‘doing this to protect my country) (Cohen)

  2. states also have all the power to legalise their harmful actions & therefore make them non-criminal, e.g. Nazi Germany passed a law to sterilise disabled people.

Q3: outline & explain two reasons why functionalists see crime as inevitable

  1. Merton argues that working class people feel a sense of strain when there is a pressure to achieve society’s goals but a lack of legitimate means to do so. innovators = crime

  2. Durkheim argues that crime will always happen because some individuals have inadequate socialisation & have not been socialised effectively into the shared norms & values = crime & deviance

Q4: outline & explain two realist solutions to the problem of crime

  1. right realists: zero tolerance policing to crack down on crime & prevent more serious crimes from occurring

  2. right realists: situational crime prevention (Clarke) - making crime physically harder to commit - increasing the fear of the consequences (deterrent): CCTV, locks, bolts, bars, alarm systems, (target hardening)

  3. left realists: social & community prevention (Lea & Young) - tackle the root causes of crime - focus on rehabilitating offenders, education, training police officers to work with the community

Q5: outline & explain two features of critical victimology

  1. focus on how the criminal justice system can sometimes apply or deny the status of ‘victim’ - they find that sometimes a victim of a crime will be reclassified as something else, e.g. corporate manslaughter → ‘accident’. (Tomb & White)

  2. they use structural reasons like poverty & patriarchy to explain why people are more likely to be victims than others, e.g. working class - lack material/financial resources to protect their homes from crime

Q6: outline & explain two criticisms of the positivist victimology perspective

  1. focus on victim precipitation, which means it places all the blame on the victim rather than focusing on the offender, this can create more harm (rape cases) (Wolfgang)

  2. focuses on interpersonal crimes of violence, ignoring crimes where there is not a clear victim, e.g. environmental, corporate crimes

Q7: outline & explain two ways in which the criminal justice system may be institutionally racist

  1. ethnic minorities are over-policed & heavily surveilled - labelling & treating them as suspicious/criminal, e.g. young black men are 10x more likely to be stopped & searched

  2. ethnic minority groups are under-protected by police - experience high levels of police failures & injustices, e.g. Stephen Lawrence

Q8: outline & explain two differences between left & right realism

  1. right realists believe crime is the result of individual’s moral failings, left realists believe crime is the result of social circumstances that push people into committing crime, e.g. deprivation

  2. right realists take a harsh approach to punishment - deterrence, incapacitation, left realists take a softer approach - wanting to tackle root causes, rehabilitating offenders or identifying at risk children & giving them additional education/support

Q9: outline & explain two criticisms of moral panics

  1. McRobbie & Thornton - in postmodern societies that are media-saturated, moral panics happen so frequently that they no longer stick - they have less traction behind them, therefore they do not create a panic

  2. powerful individuals that create moral panics are wary of doing so because sometimes they can rebound & lead to that person/gov losing power, e.g. John Major - public angry due to promotion of outdated views → lost power

Q10: outline & explain two ways in which green or environmental crime may reinforce social inequalities

  1. environmental racism (Becker): green crimes effect poorer communities/countries the most despite them contributing very little to green harm, e.g. Tuvalu - graves rising

  2. the main offenders are businesses/governments - but have low prosecution rates due to lack of definition, laws, expensive lawyers - reinforces the idea that crime is only a working class problem