crime and deviance

• Durkheim - functionalist view on crime


  He argues that crime in inevitable and little crime is needed for society to function properly but too much causes society to not function properly. He argues there will always be some people that haven't been socialised in to the shared norms and values correctly. Increasing diversity makes it harder to maintain a value consensus. He argues that there is a tendency towards anomie or normlessness which means rules governing behaviour become weaker and less clear cut. He argues there is a division of Labour is more complex so individuals become increasingly different to each other. This then means the collective conscience is weakened.
• Boundary maintenance


  Crime unites members of society in condemnation of the wrong doer and reinforces commitment to shared norms and values. The purpose of punishment is not to make the wrong doer suffer but to reaffirm societies shared norms and values.
• Durkheim - adaption and change


  Durkheim argues that all crimes start with an act of deviance. Those with new ideas and values mustn't be too stifled and must be able to challenge and change existing norms. In the long run, their values might give his rot a new set of values, culture eng. Nelson Mandela. Thus neither too much or too little crime is desirable.
• Cohen - institutions and crime


  Argues that high levels of deviance act as a warning to certain institutions are no longer functional e.g. schools with hight truancy rates.
• Duekheim - anomie theory


  Anomie is a state or normlessness - lack of social cohesion and solidarity that often accompanies rapid social change. Durkheim recognised that pre-modern societies had mechanical solidarity which meant that establishing shared norms and values and a collective conscience was relatively simple compared to doing so within the complexity of modern industrial society In which individuals are mire isolated. Anomie was one cause of deviance - If people were not properly socialised in to shared Normas and values then deviance and crime were more likely.
• Merton - strain theory


  Merton acknowledges that crime could be dysfunctional for society. Deviance occurs as a result of the strain between socially accepted goals (achieving material success) and socially approved ways of achieving these goals (through hard work and a well paid job). Merton combines two problems:

  -structural factors - society's unequal opportunity structure.

  - cultural factors - the strong emphasis on successful goals and the weaker emphasis on using legitimate means to achieve.

  People who lack both institutional means to achieve these goals experience anomie - normlessness - and can drift in to crime.
• Clowards and Ohlin - subculture strain theory


  Argue a key reason is not only unequal access to the legitimate opportunity structure but unequal access to illegitimate opportunity structures. For example, not everyone fails by legitimate means, such as schooling, then has an equal chance of becoming successful.

  Criminal subcultures - occur in poor neighbourhoods and set up youth for a career in utilitarian crime.

  Conflict subcultures- arise in areas of high population turnover.

  Retreatist subcultures - no everyone who aspires to be a criminal actually succeed.

  They provide and explanation for different types of working-class deviance in terms of subcultures.
• Cohen - Status fustration


  Focus on working class boys - they are unable to attain mainstream goals e.g. educational success. They are therefore likely to experience anomie in the middle class world of education. Due to cultural depravation and lack of skills they are at the bottom of the hierarchy which equals status frustration. They develop delinquent subcultures with opposing values as a way of coping with this frustration. The subculture therefore offers an alternative source of status hierarchy. They can win respect from their peers for truancy and vandalism.
• Miller - w/c inderpendant subculture


  Lower class theories argues that the working class has its own independent values - focal concerns. Non of these focal crimes make crime inevitable but it does make it more likely e.g. seeking excitement might lead to non-utilitarian crime and deviance such as fighting for fatalism might mean they dont think about the consequences of their actions. So they are not necessarily inverting mainstream goals as they don't adhere them in the first place. Therefore because this subculture doesn't value success in the first place it means they aren't frustrated by failure.
• Matza - delinquency and drift


  We all share delinquent values. These values lead some people into crime but for most of us, most of the time, we can keep them suppressed. This is a learned skill however which Is why the young are more likely to commit crime. Therefore, people are neither 'deviant' or 'conformist' we simply 'drift' between both throughout our life. We seek too neutralise our subterranean values e.g. 'I was drunk' 'I didn't know what I was doing'.
• Hershci - bonds of attachment or what prevents people form committing crime


  Attachment - how much do we care what others think?

  commitment- what have we got left to lose?

  Involvement- how involved are we in society?

  Belief- to what extent do we believe obeying the law is the right thing to do?
• crimogenic capitalism


  For marxists crime is inevitable as capitalism is crimogenic - by its very nature it causes crime. Poverty may mean crime is the way the working class can survive e.g. theft. Alienation and lack of control over their lives may lead to lustration and aggression leading to non-utilitarian crimes like vandalism. Capitalist society encourages greed and ruthless self interest e.g. tax evasion.
• Gordon- crimogenic capitalism

  Crime is a rational response to capitalism and it is found in all social classes - the ideological nature of law enforcements mean working class crime ever represented in crime statistics.
• Chambliss Marxist - the state and law enforcement


  Argues that laws to protect private property are the cornerstone of the capitalist economy. Ruling class can also prevent laws from being passed that may threaten interests e.g. few laws challenge unequal distribution of wealth. Marxists also argue that laws are selectively enforced -marginalise less powerful group such as ethnic minorities and working class and criminalised.
• Pearce - ideological functions of crime and the law


  Argues that laws that are in place which do protect workers right e.g. health and safety, serve to legitimise the view that capitalism is 'fair' and 'caring' as well as keeping workers fit for work. Laws that protect workers are also not always enforced e.g. only one cause of corporate manslaughter has been passed since 2007. Crimes committed by the working class also helps to keep them divided rather than focusing on the capitalist system.
• Gramsci - critical criminology


  Argues that the ruling class rule over the working class through hegemonic power i.e. through getting the working class to consent to their ideas and the capitalist system.
• Taylor, Walton and young - New marxism view of crime


  New criminology. Agree with marxists that crime must be understood in the context of criminogenic capitalism and its selective law enforcement. However, they combine elements of labelling theory to their approach e.g.focusing on the meaning of the deviant acts for the actor and how society reacts to it.
• Hall - policing the crisis


  Focuses on the moral panic created around 'mugging' in the 1970s. This idea had been imported from the USA and referred to being robbed by black men- it had become 'racialised'. The media identified young, black men as the 'folk devil' and created a moral panic (societal reaction) around this issue.
• Gilroy- There aint no black bin the Union Jack


  Gilroy rejected the view that Black's resorted to crime due to poor socialisation, he said it was a result of ethnic minorities defending themselves against and unjust society. Gilroy saw the resultant riots in south hall in 1981. The riots did remove of the 'sun' laws brought in by 1970 'muggings'.
• Left realists - critical criminology


  Left realists argue this approach romantics working class crime as 'robin hoods' who are fighting capitalism by redistributing wealth from the rich to the poor but in reality the victims are mostly poor.
• Becker - labelling theory


  Becker sees deviance as simply someone whom the label has been successfully applies, and deviant behaviour is simply behaviour that people so label. Moral enterpreneurs are people who lead a moral campaign to change the law. However, Becker argues that this new law invariably has two effects:

  -the creation of a new group of 'outsiders'

  -the creation of expanses of social control agency to enforce the rule and impose labels on offenders.

  Not everyone who commits an offence gets punished for it.
• Cicourel - phenomenological approach


  Cicourel argues that the police use common sense typifications of what a typical criminal is like and this leads them to police some groups more than others. E.g. working class areas were seen as more prone to crime so the police spent more time enforcing the law in these areas. This then lead to more arrests. This was reinforced by other law agencies such as problem officers who saw juvenile delinquency as the result of poverty, broken homes and lax parenting.
• Lemert - the effects of labelling


  Primary deviance- insignificant deviant act that have not publicly labelled. Primary deviants do not see themselves as deviant and neither does society.

  Secondary deviance- the result of societal reaction (labelling). Being publicly labelled as a criminal involves being stigmatised and excluded from normal society.
• Young - 'hippy' weed users


  Drugs were peripheral to their lifestyles to begin with. However, perception and labelling by the police led the hippies to see themselves as outsiders. They reacted to closed groups and developed a deviant subculture where drug use became a central activity - they developed a 'deviant career'. So it is not the effect itself which is necessarily deviant but the societal reaction that creates serious deviance.
• Cohen - folk devils and moral panic


  Cohen researched the fights that took place over a bank holiday weekend between two youth subcultures - the mods and the rockers. He was interested in the media response to these fights and how this led to deviance amplifications.
• Smart - 'male stream' sociology


  Womens crimes are under- researched and viewed in comparison to the by men. Smart reasoned that there might be fewer studies on women crime because women are less likely to commit crimes, so they are often viewed as less of a societal problem. Women also may face more pressure to stick to their social roles and not deviant to crime.
• Wilson and Hernstein - biological differences

  Biosocial view of criminal behaviour - crime is caused by both biological and social factors. Some people are predisposed to committing crimes - e.g.they are more aggressive, more prone to risk-taking and have low impulsive control.
• Murry


  Low intelligence is a cause of crime.
• Clarke - rational choice


  Assumes that individuals have free will and power of reason. Rational choice theorists argue that the decision to commit crime is based on a rational calculation of the likely consequences. If the perceived rewards of crime outweigh perceived costs; or if the rewards of crime appear to be greater than those non-criminal behaviour, then people will likely to offend.
• Murry and Bennett et al - socialisation and the underclass


  Biology may increase the chance of individual offending, effective socialisation decreases the risk, since it involves learning self-control. Murry argues that the crime rate is increasing because of a growing underclass or 'new rabble' who are defined by their deviant behaviour and who fail to socialise their children properly. Lone mothers are ineffective socialisation agents, especially to boys, absent fathers means that the boys lack parental discipline. Young males turn to often delinquent role models on the street.
• Hershci - control theory


  Herschi argues that song bonds and the right communities help to prevent crime e.g. neighbourhood watch.
• Lea and Young (Left Realism)


  The increase in crime is real - the official statistics are not socially constructed. Crime adversely affects the poor. The key causes of crime are relative deprivation, subcultures and marginality. Young argues that greater individualism is also to blame for rising crime because it encourages the pursuit of self-interest at the expense of others. they argue that marginalised groups lack formal organisations to represent their interests and feel cur off from mainstream society eng. education system.
• Postmodernist view on crime


  Argue that society is changing and constantly that it is marked by uncertainty and risk. Society is diverse and fragmented. Crime is a social construction based on narrow legal definitions and does not reflect on the diversity of modern society. People are increasingly freed from the constraints of social norms and social bonds, yet crime is defined by those in power.
• Henry and Milovanoic - transgressive approach

  Suggests that crime should be reconceptualised as people using power to disrespect and harm other, whether or not it is illegal. They identify two forms of harm:

  -harms of reduction- power is used to cause a victim to experience immediate loss or injury.

  -harms of repression- power is used to restrict future human development either because they are not illegal or traditionally not taken very seriously.
• Lyng - edge work and the seductions of crime


  Individuals commit crime for the excitement snd thrill gained by risk taking as they explore the boundaries between legal and criminal behaviour. Lynn reflects this as 'living on the edge'.
• Pollack 'the chivalry theory' - gender and crime


  Most people in the criminal justice system, are men and have been socialised to act in a chivalrous way towards women. The CJs is therefore more lenient towards women as so their crimes are less likely to end up in the statistics.
• Parsons the sex role - gender and crime


  Tracks differences in crime and deviance to gender roles in conventional nuclear family. Men play an instrumental role and are the breadwinner. Women play the expressive role and socialise the children in the home. Girls then have access to an adult role model, boys seek to distance themselves from such role models by engaging in aggression and anti-social behaviour. Women are therefore less likely to commit crime later on a they have been socialised in to traits that makes them less likely.
• Hirshci - control theory


  Social control theory hypothesis that the stronger ones social bonds to a family and religious, civic, and other groups - the less likely one is to commit crime. Hirshci that social bonds promote conformity with the communities shared values and norms.
• Heiddenson Patriarchal control - gender and crime

  The patriarchal nuclear family with a clear devision of domestic responsibilities between men and women is seen as a key reason by feminist for females being placed under considerable social control. Women are less likely to be part of the 'public sphere' where crime occurs. the male sphere- the workplace, the stress, the pub are areas in which crime is more likely to occur throughout.
• Adler - gender and crime


  Argues that women who are deemed to lack respectability fine it difficult to have their testimony believed by the court. This is why women are less likely to report rape.