Crime & Deviance

• Crime & Deviance

  Crime: Behaviour that break the laws of the country and is punished

  Deviance: Behaviour that goes against norms and values - Anti-social behaviour
• Crime and deviance and social constructs:

  Culture, Location, Age and Historical Relativity


  Culture: Drinking and marriage

  Location: Age of consent

  Age: Drinking and teen pregnancy

  Historical Relativity: Slavery
• Plummer: Situational deviance and Societal deviance


  Situational deviance: depends on situation, varies

  Societal deviance: set in place, most cases and murder
• How is crime measured in the UK?

  1. Police Recorded Statistics

  2. Victim surveys

  3. Self report studies
• Police Recorded Statistics

  Data from records kept by police - published every 6 months by Home Office

  Collected since 1857

  Given an accurate view of the CJS processes offenders through arrests, trials - Clear up rate (how many cases are solved)
• Why might crimes not be reported?

  - Not worth reporting (too trivial, small)

  - Fear of retaliation

  - Don't trust police e.g. black people and women

  - Too traumatic or embarrassing to retell

  - Not in position to report crime e.g. domestic abuse

  - May implicate themselves (victim precipitation)

  - Unaware they are a victim (lost vs stolen)
• Recording Crimes: Moore, Aiken and Chapman (2000)

  See the police as filters, only record some crimes reported to them:

  1. Seriousness- Too trivial

  2. Social status of victim - high class victims are more likely to be listened to. WC 'down and outs'

  3. Discretion: less likely to be arrested if smart and polite
• Police priorities/ targeting


  More likely to record a crime if they are focused on a particular issue
• Reporting of crimes increase due to:

  - The media sensitises the public to certain offences and make us more likely to be reported

  - More sophisticated police training, technology and equipment make crimes easy to detect - e.g. improved DNA testing

  - Changes in law - more offences made illegal, e.g. Up skirting
• Crimes reported that do not appear on official statistics

  40%
• Large dark figure of crime


  As not all crimes are reported and not all reported crimes are recorded, there is a large dark figure of crime.
• Victim Surveys


  Crime survey for England and Wales - conducted every year by Home Office since 1982
• Strengths of CSEW

  - Provides unrecorded/ unreported crime

  - Overcomes the stories police didn't record

  - Gives a good picture of patterns of victims
• Weaknesses of CSEW

  - Relies on memory - may be false, biased or lie

  - Omits a range of crime (businesses)

  - Victimless crime not recorded e.g. murder

  - Victim surveys are anonymous but sexual abuse and DV remain under reported
• Self report studies


  Ask people if they've committed a crime
• Strengths of self report studies

  - Reveals 'hidden offenders'

  - Useful to understand victimless crimes (i.e. drug use)
• Weaknesses of self report studies

  - Validity - relies on honesty

  - Representativeness - conducted on young people, criminals don't sign up for self report studies

  - Relevance - trivial crimes uncovered

  - Didn't realise they committed a crime
• Lombrosso (biological theories on why people commit crime)


  A 19th Century doctor stated criminals had abnormal physical characteristics that had abnormal physical characteristics which distinguished them from most of the population.

  - Large Jaw

  - Eyebrows that meet in the middle

  - Protruding chin

  - Big ears

  - Reflecting more of a 'primitive human
• Psychological theories on why people commit crime

  Link genetics to crime but focus on personality

  - Their brain is wired differently

  - Additional Y chromosomes

  - MAOA gene similar in Finland criminals
• The sociological explanations disagree to the biological and psychological theories on why people commit crime


  Not all people with the genes commit crime
• The 'Normative Approach' - Definition of crime and deviance

  A violation of social norms
• Those who conform have been 'properly socialised'
• The further away from core values, the more likely it is to be considered deviant.
• Durkheim: 'Crime is Normal/ functional' - it is an integral part of all healthy societies
• Functions of Crime: The safety valve - Davis (1937)


  Minor crime allows people to 'let off steam' in a relatively harmless way - destress and stay functional e.g. the purge

  BUT IT IS NOT LIKE CATHARSIS
• Functions of Crime: Boundary Maintenance

  • Media shows punishments to put fear to crimes to stop people doing it.
  • Can also create social cohesion and bring communities together e.g. Murders
  • Public opinions of crime acts like a gauge and can cause change in the law. DBS check spawned from 2 girls being killed by school care taker + Harpers Law of killing emergency service staff
• Functions of Crime: Warning Device - Clinard (1974)

  When a crime occours it sends a message that societies social order is breaking down - prompts government to do something
• Functions of Crime: Creates jobs

  Police Officer

  Prison Guards

  etc
• Durkheims FIN 


  Crime is....

  Functional

  Inevitable

  Normal
• Abnormal levels of crime occour in times of social change
• Durkheim: Crime is a problem of modernity

  • Social change causes crime as people become unsure of norms and values and are at risk of breaking rules
  • Shared values weakened and anomie (Sense of normlessness) developes
• Why does Crime Happen? (Durkheim)

  1. Anomie - State of normlessness

  • Peoplehave changes to their lifes and inequality and barriers to their life chances
  • They turn to crime to achieve things not possible
  • Breaks down social solidarity/ value consensus

  2. Egosim

  • Collective conciousness becomes weak so they become selfish
  • Happens if you have too many specialist roles in society
• Crime is inevitable

  Not everyone is socialised effectively

  • In a complex modern society, lifestyles and values are diverse - subcultures with distinct norms/ values will develop
  • Even in a 'society of saints' there is a difference made between good and bad
• Crime being inevitable is not a bad thing!

  Durkheim: deviance helps society to evolve "Yesterdys deviance must become today's normal"

  Leads to progress - if the collective sentiments are too strong, they crush revolutionary spirits

  Too little crime: Society will stagnate

  Too much crime: Social disorganisation and chaos
• Strengths of the functionalist view on crime and deviance:

  • Durkheim was the first to suggest crime was good for society
  • Links crime to values of society and explains how these could change
  • Explains the reason for unhealthy levels of crime which could be altered by social engineering, like introducing new laws
• Weaknesses of the functionalist view on crime and deviance:

  • Doesn't explain individual motivations and why only some people commit crime
  • Ignores whether legal definitions of crime ignore interests of groups (Marxism)
  • Over exaggerates consensus in society
  • May result in increased punishments (More pessimistic approach)
  • Deterministic: Ignores the free will people have in choosing to commit crime, assumes everyone accepts norms and values
• Taylor, Walton, and Young (1973) criticized the functionalist view, stating that crime is not functional for society, particularly criticizing the idea of boundary maintenance
• Functionalism and Crime: Robert Merton

  • Developed strain thery based on how individuals repond to the value consensus
  • Society presents us with cultural goals (money) and pressures us to achieve
  • Also provides us with institutionalised means of achieving these goals (socially acceptable ways like working hard in school and work)
• Functionalism and Crime: Robert Merton 


  Merton and Anomie-

  • Durkheim views Anomie as a temporary result of social change, but Merton sees it as permenant feature of society
  • Merton argued Durkheims definition of society was too vague
  • Merton said anomie is a disfunction, straian of society
• Functionalism and Crime: Summary 


  Members of society are in different positions in the social structure, not everyone has the same relationship with value consensus:

  • Some embrace, because they can, while others reject it because they can't meet its demands
  • E.g the american dream