Crime

• Functionalism

  • Durkheim - crime is inevitable, some will be prone to deviate.
  • Crime serves positive functions: boundary maintenance - reinforces commitment to shared norms, social solidarity. e.g. Davie - prostitution acts as a safety valve for the family.
  • Adaptation and change - all change starts with deviance, reflects needs of population.
  • Evaluation - society doesn't create crime in advance with the intention of strengthening social solidarity.
• Hirschi's social bond theory


  Bonds of attachment: belief, attachment, commitment and involvement pull people away from crime.

  Sewell - absence of father figures for black Caribbean boys, don't have all social bonds so more likely to deviate.

  Evaluation - marxists argue this blames the victim, doesn't recognise possibility to be deviant and have tight social bonds.
• Merton's strain theory


  Structural and cultural factors mean people engage in deviant behaviour when they can't achieve goals legitimately; adapt through conformity, innovation, ritualism, retreatism or rebellion.

  Evaluation - Miller - WC don't have value success in the first place so members aren't frustrated by failure.
• Subcultural Functionalism

  Cohen - as a result of status frustration, lower class end up bonding together and forming delinquent subcultures (alternative status hierarchy), which offer positive rewards (status) to those who are the most deviant - inversion of societal values.

  Bourgeois - Latino African-American drug dealers in NYs barrio area.

  Nightingale - black boys in Philadelphia - obtained consumer goods through violence.

  Evaluation - ignores female delinquency, neglects role of agencies of social control in construction of delinquency.
• Cloward & Ohlin's three subcultures


  Criminal, conflict and retreatist subcultures
• Support for functionalism

  Murray - the underclass: Long term unemployed, high numbers of lone parents, sink (deprived) housing estates, high rates of crime, relatively detached from society.

  NEETs classify nearly 1 million people in the UK, approx 20X more likely to be involved in crime. Links to bond of attachment.

  Evaluation - labelling - government, police and media may exaggerate deviance, marxists - doesn't consider why an underclass exists in the first place.
• NEETS classify nearly 1 million people in the UK, approx 20x more likely to be involved in crime
• Interactionism

  Lemert - Primary deviance involves acts not publicly labelled, secondary deviance arises from a societal reaction (labelling). Labelling may involve stigmatism, exclusion etc - become master status - lead to self-fulfilling prophecy.

  Young - hippie marijuana users in Notting Hill: persecution led to development of deviant subculture.

  Evaluation- Fuller - anger of label may lead to hard work instead.
• Cicourel

  Negotiation of justice - Typifications led officers to focus on certain types - patrolled working class areas, middle-class youths less likely to be charged as background didn't fit 'typical delinquent'.

  Lavinia Woodward - aspiring surgeon, white MC, didn't go to jail for stabbing her boyfriend.

  Evaluation - MC still go to jail, more arrests made in WC areas due to patrols.
• Deviance Amplification Spiral


  Attempt to control deviance leads to more, and so on.

  Cohen - Folk Devils and Moral Panics - reaction to 'mods and rockers', disturbances involved arrests, causing public concern.

  Thornton - ravers - ecstasy culture, perceived threat.

  Fawbert - hoodies - negatively labelled.

  Evaluation - concerns over deviance are normal and expected, fails to explain why panic ends.
• Criminogenic capitalism

  Nature of capitalism causes crime, poverty may mean crime is the only way the working class can survive, crime may be the only way to obtain goods advertised by capitalism, alienation and lack of control may cause frustration/aggression leading to crime.

  Evaluation - Switzerland is a capitalist country, but has a low crime rate, law can act against MC.
• Ideological function of capitalism

  Capitalism encourages consumerism and materialism resulting in utilitarian crime e.g. theft, bourgeoisie seek surplus and profit, corporate crime.

  Pearce - health laws keep workers fit. Law made against corporate homicide in 2007 - 1 successful prosecution in 8 years.

  Evaluation - increasing inequality but falling crime, deterministic.
• Neo-Marxist

  Critical Criminology - Taylor et al


  Laws criminalise working class, crimes are voluntary acts with the aim of change and resistance, should consider structure of society, context, act and its meanings, reaction of society, wider impact of act and reaction.

  Hall et al - Black crime and street mugging in 1970s Britain - moral panic diverted attention away from economic crisis.

  Evaluation - left realists argue this romanticises WC crime.
• Neo-Marxist theory romanticises working class crime, Hall's theory can be argued to be a conspiracy, ignores effect of crime on working class victims
• Hall and Jefferson, Clarke, Hebdige - deviant subcultures reject and resist the dominant, capitalist culture, react against crisis of capitalism (unemployment etc). E.g. Teddy boys, skinheads, punks.

  Evaluation - focuses only on male deviance, functionalists argue subcultures are functional for transition.
• Right Realist view on crime

  Wilson and Herrnstein - biological differences cause crime, some people are innately more predisposed to commit crime e.g. aggression, extroversion.

  Herrnstein and Murray - low intelligence causes crime.

  Evaluation - Lilly et al - IQ differences account for less than 3% of differences in offending.
• Right Realism

  Clarke - committing a crime is a choice based on a calculation of likely consequences, individuals have free will.

  Felson - For a crime to occur: motivated offender, suitable target, absence of a capable guardian.

  Rational choice theory - reward vs cost.

  Evaluation - can't be a rational choice if also biologically determined (contradictory).
• Left Realist view on crime


  Runciman - relative deprivation: people resent others unfairly having more + may resort to crime to obtain what they feel they're entitled to, individualism encourages pursuit of self-interest, reality TV raises expectations.

  Evaluation - deterministic, labels poor people - may lead to a self-fulfilling prophecy.
• Left realism - Subcultures

  Some subcultures may reduce deprivation gap, others may offer theodicy of disprivilege, criminal subcultures turn to crime as can't obtain mainstream goals legitimately e.g. gangs, anti-school subcultures, religious subcultures may encourage conformity.

  Evaluation - assumes a value consensus exists in the first place.
• Left realism - Young - Second aetiological crisis (crisis of explanation) - people still believe crime rate has risen though figures show a decrease since mid 1990s
• Left Realist approach to crime prevention and control


  Improving policing and control: Kinsey et al - police need to improve clear-up rates, improve relationship with local communities.

  Military policing enforced due to loss of public support - swamp areas, reduces trust - circular process.

  Evaluation - relies on victim of crime surveys and draws attention away form more practical crime measures.
• Left Realist approaches over-predict amount of crime, focus on high-crime inner-city areas + makes crime appear a bigger problem than it is
• Right Realist approach to crime prevention and control


  Situational Crime Prevention: Clarke- managing or altering the immediate environment of the crime, aims to increase risk and decrease rewards - reduce opportunity, target hardening (locking doors and windows etc).

  Evaluation - such measure only displace crime to other areas, doesn't reduce it, assumes offenders act rationally.
• Zero Tolerance Policing - right realism


  Focus on tighter family and community control and socialisation, people are encouraged to conform when there are strong social bonds integrating them into communities. e.g Neighbourhood Watch, Parenting orders, ASBOs.

  Evaluation- over-emphasis on minor offences, doesn't address wider causes of crime, gives minor offenders criminal records which may become master status.
• Media representations of crime

  Media gives a distorted view of crime: Surette - 'law of opposites' media representations are the opposite of official statistics.

  Ditton and Duffy - over-representing violent and sexual crime.

  Felson - age fallacy and dramatic fallacy, exaggerates police success.

  Evaluation - increased tendency to show police as corrupt, brutal etc e.g. Line of Duty
• Newsworthy features of crime

  Cohen and Young - news is socially constructed, news values - immediacy, dramatisation, personalization, simplification, novelty, unexpectedness, risk, violence and high-status people.

  Jewkes - crime is newsworthy as it is bad news, has a human interest element, is dramatic and can be rare.

  Evaluation - outdate - people are now exposed to a wider range of interpretations of the news and social problems.
• Increased fear of crime

  Media exaggerates amount of violent and unusual crime, exaggerates risks for certain groups becoming victims.

  Gerbner et al - heavy users of TV (4+ hrs a day) had higher levels of fear of crime.

  Schlesinger and Tumber - correlation between media consumption and fear of crime. Cohen - folk devils and moral panics.

  Evaluation - deterministic - those who are already afraid of going out at night may watch more TV just because they stay in more.
• Direct media influence on crime

  Newsome - impressionable audiences (children, teenagers etc) may be negatively influenced by violent, immoral or anti-social media content, resulting in copycat behaviour - imitation, desensitisation, glamourising offending, transmitting knowledge. E.g. James Burger murder.

  Hypodermic syringe model - drug that affects individuals.

  Evaluation - Greer and Reiner - ignores meanings that viewers give to media violence.
• Cohen - folk devils and moral panics - mods and rockers negatively labelled and associated with deviance, media used symbols (bikes, jackets) to link to unconnected events developed fear of young people, bikers etc.
• Hypodermic Syringe model


  Mass media content results in copycat behaviour - imitation, desensitisation, glamourising offending, transmitting knowledge etc.
• Relative Deprivation


  Lea and Young - mass media increases relative deprivation among marginalised groups as it presents image of a materialistic 'good life' as the norm to which people should conform to - this stimulates a sense of relative deprivation and exclusion felt by marginalised groups who cannot afford these goods.

  Cultural inclusion - media saturated society, accessible to all, resentment towards those receiving undeservedly high rewards e.g. footballers.

  Evaluation - majority of those living in deprived communities do not turn to crime.
• Cultural inclusion - media saturated society, since 1970s even the poor have access to the media's consumerist messages, widespread resentment of those receiving undeservedly high rewards e.g. footballers, TV stars
• Moral panics - Cohen - press exaggerates and distorts reports of events including numbers and extent of violence, mods and rockers. Symobls that represent them were negatively labelled and associated with deviance - led to marginalisation, further deviance etc (deviance amplification spiral).

  Thornton - rave culture. Fawbert - hoodies.

  Evaluation - assumes societal reaction is a disproportionate overreaction - left realists argue is rational. McRobbie and Thornton - less likely to panic due to more interpretations.
• Mods and rockers - Symbols such as clothes, bikes etc were all negatively labelled and associated with deviance. Media made problem seem spreading, leading to increased social control, then further marginalisation etc - deviance amplification spiral
• Alexander - myth of Asian crime in 1970s
• Media and Crime:

  Merton - media promotes American Dream through celebrating those with high success for hard work - people may turn to crime when legitimate opportunities for success are unavailable. Strain is made worse by media giving a false impression of a 'normal level' of wealth. Deviant adaptations to strain include innovation, retreatism, rebellion etc.

  Evaluation - doesn't explain violent crime, deterministic - not all who lack legitimate opportunities turn to crime e.g. conformists, ritualists.
• Media and crime:

  Greed and consumption - Gordon - media promotes the capitalist values of consumerism and materialism, creates culture of envy, leading to crime. Commodity fetishism - want things we don't need. Evaluation - inequality has increased but crime has been falling, suggests no direct link between inequality, consumption and crime. Crime still exists in non-capitalist societies.
• Media encourages us to want things we don't need and can't afford
• Inequality has increased but crime has been falling, suggesting no direct link between inequality, consumption and crime
• Media and crime:

  Masculinity - Katz - traditional forms of masculinity have been lost due to de-industrialisation. Media perpetuates 'tough' image, crime helps form identity - tough guise