Sociological Causes of Crime

• Causes of crime:

  • Poverty
  • Peer pressure
  • Cultural deprivation
  • Norms and values/socialisation
  • Mental illness
  • Environment - people, where
  • Addiction - drugs
  • Greed
  • Hate
  • Being threatened
  • Beliefs
  • For community
  • Financial debt
  • Opposition to the law
  • Emergency
  • Jealousy
  • Uneducated
  • Unemployment
  • Revenge
  • For fun
  • Media
• Primary socialisation:

  • Whether you are exposed to crime as a child from family
  • Role models in families
  • What happens in the area that you live in and what you see
  • Where you grew up and what with
  • Unstable family environment
  • Learnt behaviour (part of your norms)
  • New Right - divorce - no father figure
  • New Right believe that there are families in the underclass and have different norms and values
• Secondary socialisation:

  • Peer pressure/exposure (peers)
  • Who you look up to (would try to copy)(celebrities)
  • Negative views on institutions such as the police in the media (social media in general (glorified))
  • Religious beliefs against people
  • Gaming (making crime seem cool)
  • Crime in the name of religion
• Peer group - a group of people of similar age/status
• Subculture - a group with a distinctive set of values and behaviours who set themselves apart from wider society