ac 2.3

• When analysing markets, a range of assumptions are made about the rationality of economic agents involved in the transactions
• The Wealth of Nations was written

  1776
• Rational


  (in classical economic theory) economic agents are able to consider the outcome of their choices and recognise the net benefits of each one
• Rational agents will select the choice which presents the highest benefits
• Consumers act rationally by


  Maximising their utility
• Producers act rationally by


  Selling goods/services in a way that maximises their profits
• Workers act rationally by


  Balancing welfare at work with consideration of both pay and benefits
• Governments act rationally by


  Placing the interests of the people they serve first in order to maximise their welfare
• Groups assumed to act rationally


  • Consumers
  • Producers
  • Workers
  • Governments
• Rationality in classical economic theory is a flawed assumption as people usually don't act rationally
• A firm increases advertising

  Demand curve shifts right
• Marginal utility


  The additional utility (satisfaction) gained from the consumption of an additional product
• If you add up marginal utility for each unit you get total utility
• The basic idea behind sociological theories is that social factors play a decisive part in crime
• Sociological theories of criminality

  • Functionalist and subcultural theories
  • Interactionism and labelling theory
  • Marxist theory of crime and law
  • Left and right realist theories
  • Surveillance theories
• Functionalist and subcultural theories


  • They are structural theories: they focus on the structure of society and how it is organised
  • They see the structure of society as being the underlying cause of crime
• Anomie


  Normlessness where shared norms become weakened
• Functions of crime


  • Boundary maintenance
  • Social change
  • Safety valve
  • Warning light
• In 1963, the future President Mandela was labelled a terrorist by a South African court
• Merton's strain theory


  • The root cause of crime lies in the unequal structure of society
  • It focuses on the USA but the ideas can also be applied to the UK
  • American society values 'money success' or wealth as the goal people should pursue and tells them they should achieve this through legitimate means
• Blocked opportunities


  • Not everyone has an equal chance of achieving success legitimately because American society is very unequal
  • Opportunities for working-class people are often blocked by poverty and inadequate schools
  • This creates a 'strain' between the goal society says they should achieve and the lack of legitimate means to do so
• Merton's deviant adaptations


  • Conformists
  • Innovators
  • Ritualists
  • Retreatists
  • Rebels
• Subcultural theories of crime

  • Delinquent subcultures are groups whose norms and values are deviant
  • They enable their members to gain status by illegitimate means
• Albert Cohen: status frustration

  • Deviance results from the lower classes' failure to achieve by legitimate means
  • Subcultural deviance is a group response to failure, not just an individual one
  • The subculture offers an alternative status hierarchy in which they can win respect from their peers through delinquent actions
• Cloward and Ohlin's three subcultures


  • Criminal subcultures
  • Conflict subcultures
  • Retreatist subcultures
• Interactionism


  • Our interactions with one another are based on meanings or labels
  • 'Crime' and 'criminals' are social constructs - meanings that we create through our social interactions
• Labelling theory


  • No act is deviant or criminal in itself, it only becomes so when we create rules and apply them to others
  • To understand criminality, we must focus on how certain actions and people get labelled as criminal in the first place
• Differential enforcement of the law


  • Social control agencies like the police label certain groups as criminal
  • This results in the law being enforced more against one group than against another
• Primary and secondary devianceinteractionism 


  • Primary deviance involves acts that have not been publicly labelled
  • Secondary deviance results from labelling, where the individual is seen solely in terms of their label and it becomes their master status
• Self-fulfilling prophecy


  The individual becomes what the label said they were, and further offending becomes more likely
• Deviance amplification spiral


  Attempts to control deviance through a 'crackdown' lead to it increasing rather than decreasing, prompting even greater attempts to control it and yet more deviance
• Interactionists reject the use of crime statistics compiled by the police as they measure what the police do rather than what actually happens
• Marxist theory of crime and law


  • The law and criminal justice system are a means of keeping the working class in their place
  • Crime is inevitable in capitalist society because capitalism is a criminogenic (crime-causing) system
• Marxist view of crime and the law

  • Capitalism causes crime
  • Law making and law enforcement are biased
  • Crime and the law perform ideological functions
• Marxists see both law making and law enforcement as serving the interests of the capitalist class
• Law making (Marxist view)


  Laws are made to protect the private property of the rich
• Selective law enforcement (Marxist view)


  The law is enforced selectively - against the working class but not the upper classes
• White collar and corporate crimes of the rich are much less likely to be prosecuted than working-class 'street' crimes
• Out of 200 companies who had broken safety laws, only three were prosecuted
• Despite the large number of deaths at work caused by employers' negligence, there is only one successful prosecution of a UK firm in eight years for corporate homicide