Crime and deviance

• Durkheim:

  'Crime is an essential part of society'

  'Deviance can lead to social change'
• Cohen:

  'Crime can indicate a problem in wider society that needs addressing'

  'Attempts to control deviance often lead to an increase in deviance'

  Folk devils and moral panic with the mods and rockers led to a deviance amplification spiral
• Davis:

  'Some minor deviance can prevent more serious crime'
• Polsky:

  'Pornography channels sexual desires away from adultery'
• Merton:

  'Deviance is the result of strain between mainstream goals and the legitimate means of society'
• Cloward and Ohlin:

  'There is unequal access to legitimate and illegitimate opportunity structures'
• Miller:

  'The working class commit crime in order to achieve their own goals, not mainstream ones'
• Cicourel:

  'Police patrol working class areas more intensively due to their stereotypes about the typical criminal'
• Lemert:

  'Labelling can result in secondary deviance and a self-fulfilling prophecy'

  Labels turn into a master status, and a sfp where individuals act out the label by secondary deviance. Society reacts with hostility reinforcing the deviant's outsider status leading to a deviant career.
• Braithwaite: (labelling and interactionist)

  'Crime rates are lower in societies where the act alone is labelled as criminal'

  disintegrative shaming both the act and the actor are labelled as criminal so it's harder to socialise back into mainstream society.

  reintegrative shaming labels only the act as negatively so it avoids labelling the offender as evil thus others are able to forgive them. reduces chance of secondary deviance.
• Marxists: capitalism is criminogenic

  Gordon argues capitalist causes crime as it encourages traits such as greed, profit, materialism, and competition. The working class commit crimes of theft and drug dealing and higher social classes commit white collar and corporate crimes such as tax evasion.

  Non-utilitarian crimes like violence and property damage are also committed as the w/c experience alienation and exploitation
• Traditional Marxist crime theories:

  Chambliss: laws that protect private property are the foundation of capitalism

  Snider: the state are reluctant to pass laws which threaten profits

  Britain's east African colonies where tax law was introduced.
• Marxist: the cjs applies the law differently to each social group. Reiman argues:

  • selected bias when applying the law
  • ruling class are just as likely to commit crime but less likely to have their actions treated as criminal.
• ideological functions of law (MARXISM)

  law is selectively enforced so appears as a w/c phenomenon. this divides the w/c as it shifts blame onto criminals not capitalism.

  Pearce: Some laws such as health and safety give capitalism a caring face and a false class consciousness is created.
• Labelling theories of crime: (pros)

  • reveal that the law is not fixed but socially constructed
  • shows how crime stats are only a record of the activities of control agents
  • illustrates how society's attempts to control deviance can actually create more
• Labelling theories of crime (cons):

  • deterministic as implies labelling will result in more deviance and a deviant career. states that without labelling there would be no deviance
  • ignores some people actively choose deviance
  • ignores real victims of crime
  • recognises powers role in creating deviance but fails to analyse the source of this power
• Becker (labelling) moral entrepreneurs

  • political parties or moral organisations with the power to create and enforce rules against behaviour they deem deviant
• Cicourel: negotiation of justice

  Those in the middle-class do not fit officers' typifications of the ideal criminal so they are more able to negotiate justice by having educated parents who convince the cjs they are sorry and they can afford a lawyer