Crime & deviance

• Social control


  Methods used to persuade/force individuals to conform to social norms/values
• Informal social control


  Norms/values people are socialised into that teach what is right and wrong

  • E.g. CCTV, stigmatisation of a criminal record
• Formal social control


  Positive/negative sanctions applied by the CJS

  • E.g. prison sentence, restraining order, fine
• Social construction of crime/deviance


  There is no fixed definition of crime/deviance because it is dependent on the culture of a society
• Societal deviance


  Acts which are perceived by most members of a society as deviant

  • E.g. drink driving, child abuse
• Situational deviance


  Acts which are only defined as deviant in particular contexts

  • E.g. swearing, use of drugs
• How definitions of deviance can vary:

  • Non-deviant crime e.g. underage drinking
  • The time e.g. smoking indoors wasn't deviant until being criminalised
  • The society/culture e.g. women driving
  • The social group/subculture e.g. piercings, tattoos
  • The place/context e.g. 'loss of control' defence
• Biological theory of crime


  The genetic makeup of criminals makes them predisposed to crime

  • Lombroso: 'atavistic' features e.g. dark skin, extra fingers
• Psychological theory of crime


  Criminal behaviour is determined by genetics & personality

  • E.g. Mobley Defence: Stephen Mobley was sentenced to death for murder, & his lawyers appealed by arguing brain trauma made him predisposed to seeking violent solutions to conflict
• Durkheim: functions of crime

  • Inevitable feature of social life because not everyone will commit to norms/values; 4 necessary features:
  • Strengthens collective values: shocking crimes reaffirm boundaries of behaviour e.g. Sarah Everard
  • Enables social change: certain level of deviance allows for new ideas e.g. BLM movement
  • Safety valve: relieves stresses in society e.g. 2011 London riots
  • Warning device: highlights problems e.g. prison suicides
• Merton: strain theory

  • Social order is based on consensus around social goals/means
  • Inequality means not everyone has the means; 5 responses:
  • Conformity
  • Innovation: maintain goals, reject means, turn to crime
  • Ritualism: lose sight of goals, follow means
  • Retreatism: reject goals & means, drop out of society
  • Rebellion: replace goals/means with radical alternatives
• Cohen: status frustration

  • Working class youth are denied opportunities to achieve accepted goals by approved means
  • Feel they're denied status -> status frustration
  • React by developing a delinquent subculture: alternative values so award status based on delinquency
• Cloward & Ohlin: expansion of Cohen's work

  • Cohen's theory doesn't allow for diversity of responses:
  • Criminal: in areas with an existing criminal network; apprenticed into crime, opportunities for progression
  • Conflict: areas without an existing criminal network; frustrations are channeled into clashes with other groups
  • Retreatist: opt out of society & alleviate frustrations through deviance e.g. drugs, petty crime
• Miller: focal concerns

  • Working class has an independent set of norms/values through which they gain status, based on satisfying 'focal concerns':
  • Excitement
  • Toughness e.g. crime involving violence
  • Smartness: street smarts e.g. illegal gambling, low level fraud
  • Trouble
  • Autonomy: anti-authority
  • Fate: fatalism
• Hirschi: control theory & 4 social bonds

  • Social order maintained through socialisation; social bonds prevent people committing crime
  • Attachment: people have goals & means of achieving them e.g. education, employment; crime could disrupt these
  • Belief: commitment to society's norms/values & belief that crime is morally wrong
  • Commitment: risk of social stigma within the community
  • Involvement: alleviates frustration by providing status; involvement with local community & awareness of the potential damage & a lack of time
• Marxist view of crime & deviance

  • Law/law enforcement are aspects of ruling class control
  • Capitalism is criminogenic
  • Ruling class media ownership -> focus on working class crime
• Neo-marxist view of crime & deviance

  • No one is forced to commit crime
  • Working class crime = symbolic acts of resistance
  • Capitalism has a role but it's not as simple as Marxism claims
• Gordon (Marxist): capitalism & crime

  • Capitalist society = 'dog eat dog' so crime is inevitable
  • Law exists to protect the bourgeoisie not the proletariat
  • Prosecution of corporate crimes suggests CJS is fair
• Snider (Marxist): corporate/white collar crime

  • Costs society more than street crime
  • Capitalism encourages corporate crime: competition leads firms to break the law for higher profits
  • Corporate crime is rarely prosecuted & rarely results in a custodial sentence e.g. corporate witnesses for Grenfell got immunity
• Chambliss (Marxist): the law

  • Purpose is to protect private property & the ruling class
  • Crime is universal within the class system because capitalism is individualistic & utilitarian
  • Working class have limited means to commit crime so gravitate towards violence/exploitation of weaker individuals to alleviate frustration/make money
  • Ruling class have unlimited means so can commit more subtle forms e.g. corporate
• Gramsci (Neo-Marxist): 'crisis of hegemony'

  • Authority of the state/ruling class is challenged & status quo is questioned e.g. Casey Report
• Gilroy (Neo-Marxist): myth of black criminality

  • Crime by young ethnic minorities is political resistance to racism
  • Crime by black youths isn't due to poor socialisation/subcultures
  • Black youth are in conflict with their white oppressors: resisting neo-colonialism e.g. Colston statue
• Hall: 'black mugger' stereotype

  • Fabrication by the media at a time of societal upheaval (rise of immigration & unemployment); bourgeoisie needed a scapegoat
  • Systemic racism goes hand in hand with labelling
• Taylor, Walton, & Young: fully social theory

  • To understand crime, need to view it in its totality
  • Wider origins of deviant act (societal cause)
  • Immediate origins of deviant act (particular circumstances)
  • Act itself (meaning for individual)
  • Immediate origins of social reaction (linked to individual)
  • Wider origins of social reaction (rest of society)
  • Effects of labelling & impact on future behaviour (will they be labelled, will it become a master status etc.)
• Primary deviance (Lemert - Interactionist)


  Deviance that hasn't been publicly labelled

  • E.g. stealing stationery from work
• Secondary deviance (Lemert - Interactionist)


  Deviance that follows once a person has been publicly labelled as deviant

  • E.g. viewing child porn
• Young (Interactionist): deviance amplification spiral

  • Police arrest people for minor offences
  • Media sensationalises these stories & create a folk devil which generates a moral panic
  • Police crack down further in response, media report further
  • Folk devils begin resisting arrest & turning to new forms of crime
  • E.g. drugs in Notting Hill
• Becker: labelling

  • Act only becomes deviant when others perceive & define it as such
  • Police operate with preconceptions about what constitutes 'trouble'/criminal 'types'/criminal areas
  • Labelling & societal reaction can lead to self-fulling prophecy & deviant career by closing off legitimate opportunities
• Cicourel

  • Juvenile crime rates consistently higher in working class areas
  • Police view behaviour of working class youths differently
  • Perceive middle class youth as coming from 'good' backgrounds with family support to change their behaviour
  • E.g. Brock Turner (6mo of a maximum sentence of 14yrs)
• Disintegrative shaming (Braithwaite - Interactionist)


  Criminal is labelled twice (once for their actions & once for being criminal), which leads to social isolation & further offending
• Reintegrative shaming (Braithwaite - Interactionist)


  Crime is labelled negatively but not the individual, which could allow for individuals to be reintegrated
• Postmodernist view of crime

  • Metanarratives have broken down so structural POV alone can't explain crime
  • Social causes of crime are undiscoverable: crime = expression of individual needs
• Henry & Milanovic (PoMo): crime as social harm

  • Should be reconceptualised as use of power to harm others
  • Harms of reduction: power used to cause a victim immediate loss/injury
  • harms of repression: power used to restrict future human development e.g. hate crime, SA
• Katz (PoMo): thrill of crime

  • People often commit crime purely for enjoyment: criminology often overlooks this
  • People like to live on the 'edge' of criminal behaviour
  • Violent crime fits the demands of hegemonic masculinity
• Left Realism

  • Inequality is the main cause of crime
  • Policy should focus on community intervention, not punishment
• Right Realism

  • Individual is responsible for crime: it's a choice
  • Policy should focus on punishment
• Young: 'bulimic society'

  • Features of late modernity intensifies sense of relative deprivation
  • Growing individualism
  • Weakening of informal controls
  • Growing economic inequality
  • People gorge themselves on media images of expensive consumer lifestyles but are forced to abandon these expectations by economic exclusion
• Lyng: 'edgework'

  • Features outlined by Young generate crime among deprived youth
  • Uncertainty leads to thrill-seeking behaviour which can lead to crime
• Lea & Young: 3 causes of crime

  • Relative deprivation: creates status frustration
  • Marginalisation: can break social bonds which leads to crime
  • Subcultures: criminal subcultures have been normalised
• Lea & Young: 'square of crime'

  • 4 elements to consider to fully understand & tackle crime:
  • State: formal controls
  • Informal (social) controls
  • Victim: why people become victims & how they respond
  • Offender: what motivates them