Crime & Deviance Notes A

• Deviance refers to people who do not conform to the norms accepted by the majority of the people in a community or society.
• Factory-fitted vehicle immobilizers make it more difficult to steal.
• Social control and socialization are the main processes involved in encouraging people to conform to the dominant social norms and values of society.
• These processes aim to prevent deviance and maintain social order.
• Sanctions are the consequences of your actions, either positive or negative, and can be either informal or formal.
• Crime refers to an act of deviance that goes beyond breaking the norm because it actually breaks a law.
• Crime is usually punished more than deviance.
• An individual can be considered as deviant because he/she goes against the mainstream society, but this does not mean that the person is criminal.
• There are 4 main theories on crime & deviance: Functionalist Theories, which look at crime and deviance resulting from structural tension and lack of moral regulation in society; Conflict Theory, which focuses on the power relations between different social groups; Labeling Theory, which examines the processes by which individuals come to be labeled as deviant; and Control Theory, which explores the ways in which individuals attempt to control their deviant behavior.
• Durkheim used the term anomie to describe the erosion of traditional norms and standards in modern society.
• Durkheim looks at crime and deviance as social facts, meaning they are inevitable and necessary in society.
• Durkheim believes that crime is necessary for two functions: it has the adaptive function, which means that it can introduce new ideas and challenges in a society which can lead to change, and it promotes boundary maintenance between good and bad behaviour, which helps to clarify what behaviour is considered to be acceptable and not in society.
• Durkheim was criticized because he did not state which level of crime is the right amount for society.
• Durkheim believes that deviance has an important part to play in society because it makes us aware of what is considered to be deviant and not through deviance in society.
• Rather than elimination of deviance completely, it is more likely that society needs to keep the level of deviance within acceptable limits.
• Social structures in society are supposed to provide us with means to reach our goals.
• Merton believes that deviant behaviour might occur when access to education and work is not equal for everyone.
• People might be too pressured that they do their best in attaining their goal, even in illegitimate ways.
• Stealing replaces hard work, vandalism replaces respect for property, threats replace respect for others in this subculture.
• Working class youth believe in the success gods of mainstream culture, but their experiences of failure in education, living in deprived areas and having the worst chances in the job market mean they have little opportunity to attain them by approved means.
• Alber Cohen continued on Merton's study, arguing that deviance was occurring collectively through the formation of subcultures.
• This gives the working-class youth an opportunity to achieve some status in their peer groups which they are denied in the wider society.
• In America, deviance has increased way beyond the point that society could handle or accept it.
• The level of deviance tends to be roughly equivalent to the community’s capacity for handling it.
• Cohen's study on Delinquent Boys (1955) looks at how working-class boys were frustrated in their position.
• Robert Meron developed the functionalist theory by attempting to explain why deviance arises in the first place.
• These boys react to this situation by developing and meeting in criminal subcultures with their own type of distinctive values which are against the accepted form of behaviour in society.
• This element of revenge helps to explain why a lot of juvenile offenses, such as vandalism and anti-social behaviour are not reported to the authorities.
• Merton speaks of the American Society and the American dream.
• Revenge in this subculture helps them to get back at society.
• Merton identified four ways of how people act to tension between socially endorsed values and the limited means of achieving them: conformity, innovation, ritualism, and retreatism.
• Kai Erikson set out to test Durkheim's thesis on normalizing deviance in 1964.
• The solution to crime is to increase the costs (such as heavier policies) to increase the risks of being caught and to reduce the opportunities for crime.
• Tyler argues that people respect laws if these are related to their morals and their own perceptions of legitimacy.
• In the USA, 'three strikes laws' were introduced where third-time offenders were given mandatory jail terms to keep the public safe from their activities.
• These people do not see these acts as 'immoral' and may look down upon others who shoplift or spray graffiti in public places.
• Situational crime prevention does not focus on reforming the offenders but concentrates on changing the environments.
• Right Realists believe in community control and suggest that it is poor socialization and lack of community controls that lie behind crime and anti-social behaviour.
• The most effective form of crime control is through strengthening the bond of community.
• Government policy on crime prevention in the UK has focused on limiting the opportunities for crimes in an approach known as situational crime prevention (SCP).