Committing crime

• Crime


  An act which is illegal or against the law e.g. murder, theft
• Deviance


  An act that breaks social norms and is frowned upon e.g. abortion, adultery
• Delinquency


  A deviant act is committed by the youth e.g. binge drinking
• Causes of delinquency


  • Peer pressure
  • Lack of supervision
  • To look cool
  • Blackmailed
• Status frustration (Albert Cohen)


  Young proletariat men become delinquent due to 'status frustration'. Young men realise they will not be praised academically so begin to be disruptive. This leads to them being sent out regularly and they gain little to no qualifications, very likely to gain minimum wage through their career - they turn to crime for wanting status
• Agencies of social control

  • Informal: family, peer groups, media, education, religion
  • Formal: police, judiciary
• Sanctions


  Can be positive and negative. Those given by law enforcement are used to punish offenders and prevent crime.
• Other reasons people commit crime

  • Peer pressure
  • Albert Cohen - status frustration
  • They live in poor areas with many deviant individuals so crime is a norm
  • Cycle of poverty
  • Become part of subcultures e.g. gangs to gain power, status, money, peer pressure
• Chambliss on law and white collar crimes


  The government often make laws that are in favour of the working class so it is not obvious what is going on e.g. minimum wage. The rich stay in positions of power like law makers so that laws are made to benefit the ruling class. Laws are made by the ruling class for the ruling class.
• White collar crimes


  • Tax evasion
  • Embezzlement - stealing from the company you work for
  • Money laundering
• Punishments for white collar crimes

  • Fined
  • Fired
  • Assets frozen/taken away
  • Prison
• Blue collar crimes


  • Benefit fraud
  • Shoplifting
  • Drug dealing
• Punishments for blue collar crimes

  • Prison
  • Community services
  • TAG/ASBO
  • Fined
• The proletariat tend to get a worse punishment: Can't afford a top lawyer so use a lawyer provided to them by the state, their crime tend to be more violent and physical in comparison to white collar which tends to harm the economy more, blue collar crimes are sensationalised by the media
• David Beckham hires 'Mr loophole' lawyer - he was speeding and got a ticket on the 15th day however by law he should have gotten it by the 14th day so he couldn't be prosecuted


  • Lavinia Woodward was spared prison and given a suspended sentence after attacking her boyfriend because they didn't want to affect her career of becoming a surgeon
• Corporate crimes


  • Embezzlement
  • Money laundering
  • Selling goods that are dangerous
  • Not paying tax - Starbucks pays £5M corporation tax on £95M gross profit
• 2013 - number of supermarkets discovered to have been selling horse meat packaged as beef


  • Early 60s a drug was sold to pregnant women advertised as helping with morning sickness - the drug wasn't tested properly and thousands of children were born with missing or malformed limbs
• Punishments for corporate crimes

  • CEOs fired or fined
• Government crime


  An illegal act committed by the state, bourgeoisie tend to be involved
• Government crimes


  • Second homes
  • Breaking a treaty
  • Going against human rights
• Punishments for government crimes

  • MPs are usually fined
• Reasons why there are more crimes in urban areas

  • Larger population
  • More opportunities to commit crimes e.g. more cars to steal
  • More deprivation
  • Less likely to get caught
  • House are close together with less security - easy to jump from garden to garden
• Differences in crimes between urban and rural areas

  • Rural: stealing livestock and machinery, deer poaching, fly tipping

  Urban: knife crimes, stealing phones, pickpocketing, cat burglary
• Reasons why 16-24 year olds are more likely to commit crimes

  • Albert Cohen - status frustration
  • Peer pressure
  • More likely to be in subcultures like gangs
  • They are paid a wage much lower based on their age - according to the minimum wage, under 18s are paid £5.28 an hour in comparison 23 and over who are paid £10.22 an hour
  • They have less responsibility
  • Lack of maturity
  • Boredom / frustration
• Anomie


  When there is a lack of of social order or cohesion e.g. London riots 2011
• In 2013 it became a crime for 16 and overs who physically, mentally, sexually and cyber abuse another individual