crime and deviance

• Crime is inevitable


  Poor socialisation results in not being taught the same norms and values. Inevitability of crime stems from the inequality that exists in society
• Crime is positive


  Boundary maintenance, crime is functional in society when there is the right amount. When people are punished for crimes it teaches people not to go against the norms and values of society, strengthening boundaries and further preventing crime
• Davis agrees with Durkheim


  Prostitution provides positive functions because it allows men to express sexual frustrations and not take them out elsewhere
• Adaptation and change


  Some crime can be functional for society because it allows social adaptation and change: a criminal act must take place for society's norms and values to change
• functionalism- merton strain theory


  states that crime is caused by the failure to achieve goals of the American dream through legitimate means.
• Conformism


  Accepting the goals and legitimate means to achieve them
• Innovation


  Subscribe to the goals of the American dream but use illegitimate means to achieve them
• Ritualism


  Reject the goals but conform to the means
• Retreatism


  Reject both the goals of the American dream and subscribe to the illegitimate means
• Rebellion


  Replace the goals and means with their own
• functionalism- Cohen status frustration

  focuses on w/c boys in school who fail to succeed in m/c environments so form delinquent subcultures. w/c boys try to succeed within subcultures by trying to rise in the hierarchy, which they have a higher chance in succeeding in. explaining why people commit non-utalitatrian crime.
• functionalism- cloward and ohlin types of subcultures 


  criminal subcultures- provide apprenticeships for utilitarian crime. assist in areas with stable criminal cultures, with heiranhys of professional criminals eg drug dealers conflict subcultures- exist in areas of high population. there is social disorganisation and only loosely organised gangs. retreats subcultures- formed of people who fail in both legitimate and illegitimate means and may turn to illegal drug use
• interactionism theory- Becker 


  a deviant is someone who the label has been successfully applied and deviant behaviour is behaviour that people so label. they are labelled based on gender, class and ethnicity
• interactionism- cicourel 


  officers typifications pf the typical criminal lead them to concerntrate om people that are most likely to offend. eg, patrolling working class areas
• interactionalism- lemert


  primary deviance- acts that have not been publicly labeled criminal. secondary deviance- deviant act and individuals that are labelled, people may only see them according to their now master status( criminal defined by their deviant act) which may lead to a deviant career
• interactionism- brainwaithe 


  reintegratative shaming- punishes them in a way that strengthens bond with society. disintegrative shaming- punishment which isolates the individual and causes secondary deviance
• interactionism- Douglas 


  rejects the use of official statistics when examining suicide. whether a death is labelled as suicide depends on the interactions and negotiations between social actors. statistics tell us nothing about the individuals decision to commit suicide.