1. How are Crime And Deviance defined and measured?

Question 1

Define crime

Answer 1

An action or commission which constitutes as an offence and is punishable by law.

Ranges from offences eg speeding or illegally downloading music (and these may not be deviant as no one is hurt) BUT can range to corporate crime eg tax evasion or assault eg acid attacks, stabbings and burglary

Question 2

Define deviance

Answer 2

Behaviour which is disapproved of by most people in a society or group, which doesn’t conform to shared norms and values.

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Question 3

Define social order

Answer 3

Citizens generally conform to shared norms, values and morals so that society is peaceful and predictable - this is maintained by the agencies of social control.

Question 4

Define social control

Answer 4

Process by which people are persuaded to obey the rules and conform so that social order isn’t threatened. The agencies of social control are institutions that seek to ensure conformity. Therefore can be 1) informal and 2) formal.

Question 5

Formal social control

Answer 5

This refers to social institutions that enforce social control eg the law, courts, police, prisons and military. Their aim is to suppress and punish illegal or criminal behaviour. This can include physical force or some kind of forceful behaviour.

Question 6

Informal social control.

Answer 6

This is aimed to enforce behaviour that society expects of particular individuals eg expectations about how they should behave. As it’s informal, it’s less strict than formal but arguably just as effective - if not more. Agencies are WOPERM (workplace, peer group, education system, religion, media and the family) If the correct / desirable behaviour isn’t demonstrated then it could lead to informal punishment which are negative sanctions eg disapproval / grounding / telling off.

Question 7

Social Control evaluation

Answer 7

Functionalists suggest that social Control is of value to society since it is essential to the maintenance of social order.

Marxists however criticise social control as they believe the power is in the hands of the upper classes and they maintain social control in order to rule.

Question 8

What’s the social construction of crime

Answer 8

This is the idea that crime and deviance can be interpreted in many ways. An action isn’t deviant or criminal until it’s defined as being so therefore it depends on our points of view as to what norms and values there are in our society.

Therefore what is deviant will vary because it’s relative according to time -> circumstance -> culture /society/ place

Question 9

Relativity of crime - time

Answer 9

Social constructs change over time therefore so does what’s criminal and deviant. For example alcohol consumption was illegal in the 1920’s but legal in the US now (over the age of 21). Also before 1983 it was legal to not wear a seatbelt but now it’s illegal as safety laws have been put into place.

Question 10

Relativity of crime - circumstance

Answer 10

QAs Plummer described as situational deviance because it’s dependent on the situation.

For example killing people is heroic during war but criminal if it’s murder

Or being naked at home / or on a nudist beach is a norm but deviant otherwise or in public

Question 11

Relativity of crime - place

Answer 11

Crime and deviance vary over space, between societies, due to different sub cultural values and culture and Plummer called this societal deviance.
Eg - smoking marijuana is legal in Amsterdam but illegal in the UK
Eg - chewing gum is legal in the UK but illegal in Singapore, with a 2 year sentence or £100,000 penalty

Or

Deviance eg wearing revealing clothes is acceptable in western culture but deviant in UAE / Saudi Arabia due to clothing norms dependent on the culture of the society involved.

Question 12

Relativity of crime evaluation

Answer 12

+ relative means our sanctions and laws also change to reflect current problems eg acid attacks - led to regulates age to buy acid

• difficult to compare crime and deviance cases

Question 13

Official crime stats - police recorded crime

Answer 13

All of the crime stats that the police collect in England and Wales from over 43 police forces - including the British Transport Police

Stats are collected each year and can give an official account of the volume of crime and can look for trends eg in relation to who criminals actually are (gender/age/etc) or nature of the crime etc BECAUSE the time lag between occurrence and reporting is short.

Eg 29% sex offence rise from 2014-16
Eg 9% knife offensive rise from 2014-15

Question 14

Advantages of police recorded crime stats

Answer 14

• quantitative nature can allow emerging trends and patterns to be established
• data is immense and large scale, collected by the home office therefore is very up to date and has temporal validity. This means the data is also cheap and relatively available to access.
• Positivists support their use as stats are social facts that measure behaviour quantitatively, and so are fairly reliable.

Question 15

Disadvantages of police recorded crime stats

Answer 15

• a limitation is the dark figure or crime which refers to crime that’s unrecorded and we might not even know about therefore affecting the reliability and accuracy of the data. Eg only 8% of rape victims inform the police about the crime.
  1) one reason for this is that crimes aren’t recorded to the police eg victim might not want to report the crime eg only 8% of rape victims inform the police about the crime, the person might not feel the police can do anything or it’s too trivial, some crimes aren’t even recognised by the police eg identity theft or the perfection of the individual eg when does a fight become assault.
  2) or due to police discretion which is a great problem. Decisions made by the police might affect whether they actually record the crime or not. Eg corruption, priorities at the time eg royal wedding = large police presence, stereotypes and labelling.
  3) another problem - official stats are governed by social constructs. The stats run the risk of being unreliable and invalid as they don’t give an accurate picture of crime but a misleading one that’s dependent of many decisions eg noticing, acknowledging, reporting and recording a crime where these stages could be problematic and lead to crime not being recorded at all officially. Simon Holdaway stared that ‘official stats are socially constructed as they are the product of a range of decisions’ which reinforces that these decisions vary depending on individual perceptions.

Question 16

Conclusion on police recorded stats

Answer 16

Realists accept that by believing that these figures have their uses and tend to reflect real crimes - they’re a good set of stats. Every methodology has flaws but this is arguably the best way to identify recorded crime as an official institutional method. For example compared with victim surveys and self reports which may seem unreliable.

They do work best however when combined with the CSEW to give a holistic overview of crime.

Question 17

Official crime stats AND victim survey - CSEW

Answer 17

Crime survey for England and Wales
Victim survey that asks people about their experiences of crime. It aims to complement police stats by directly asking respondents about personal and property crimes eg burglary and violence.

• can help estimate the extent of domestic violence, stalking and sexual attack victims as most unreported crime but very serious
• it’s a face to face interview conducted in respondents homes about their experiences if crime in the last 12 months for 500,000 households, selected from the postcode lottery.

Eg from 2015 fraud and computer misuse is a category now
Shows that crime is on the low and has been decreasing since 2009
10.7 million offence in year of June 2018.

Question 18

Advantages of CSEW

Answer 18

• aims to complement police stats so that researchers can investigate the true extent of crime; it allows victims to be counted and make up for some of the dark figure of crime. For example it shows that crime is higher than what police recorded crime show eg up to x4 higher in some cases
• more valid than police recorded crime because the CSEW allow participants to talk about their experience of being a victim and can be honest as to whether they reported it or not.
• it can be criticised because it only contains some categories of crime and leaves out others. Eg murder and rape and corporate crime aren’t included therefore researchers wouldn’t be able to find out if the public have been victims of this crime.

Question 19

Disadvantages of CSEW

Answer 19

It can be criticised because it only contains some categories of crime and leaves out others. Eg murder and rape and corporate crime aren’t included therefore researchers wouldn’t be able to find out if the public have been victims of this crime.

It relies on good memories so there’s a risk that people may forget incidents or telescope others eg saying something happened recently when it happened 2 years ago which will scew stats and affect reliability

It’s also not representative eg leaves out Scotland and Ireland and only a certain number of households and no one younger than 9. So can it be used to make generalisations for the wider population.

Question 20

Victim survey - local crime surveys

Answer 20

Eg Islington crime survey 1986

Left Realists Lea and Young conducted in depth survey that focused on victims of crime and their experiences within a certain geographical area.

Used trained researchers that sympathetically conducted unstructured interviews. The survey uncovered a high rate of female victimisation and interpretivists preferred it due to this qualitative nature.

Eg

• Women tend to under report crime as 17 rape cases were recorded in the BCS compared to the 1,200 uncovered in the 1980 ICS
• 33% of households experienced serious crime in the past 12 months
• crime shaped peoples lives eg 25% avoided going out after dark and 28% felt unsafe in their own homes

Question 21

Victim survey - local crime survey evaluation

Answer 21

Interpretivists advocates their use because of qualitative nature on their experiences of crime - shows high levels of verstehen and therefore makes the data high in validity.

But a skilled interviewer is needed and this means it’s low in reliability due to unstructured interviews and Positivists would criticise it.

Question 22

Victim surveys - Feminist victim survey

Answer 22

Eg Dobash and Dobash victim survey on domestic violence

• collects qualitative data on females who had experience with domestic violence at a refugee
• in 1980: 109 unstructured in depth interviews (verstehen and validity)
• it doesn’t aim to compete with police recorded figures but rather to access a particular group of victims and to understand the impact of crime on their lives
• they criticise structured interviews because that allows an active researcher and passive interviewee which mirrors the gender divisions and hierarchy of a Patriachal society.

Question 23

Victim surveys - Feminist victim survey EVALUATION

Answer 23

+ it’s very valid, due to qualitative data - rich in detail - accurate reflection and verstehen can be gained

• Dark figures of crime still exists as it doesn’t include male victims. The interviewee may still not disclose the truth. It’s not representative to make wider generalisations from due to the low response rate. Therefore good maybe to gain info about the effect of crime but not so good as a measure.

Question 24

Self report studies

Answer 24

They can reveal social characteristics and profiles or criminal offenders using the qualitative approach eg unstructured interviews such as Shaw in 1996 who wanted to investigate re life history of criminals.

They can also pick up criminal offences that police recorded crime fail to record using the quantitative approach eg list of petty crimes that you tick if you’ve committed without being caught.

Such as Farmington and West 1994 Longitudinal Research

• 400 males investigated and 90% admitted to at least 1 offence
• low family income, poor housing, large family size were the main variables that helped predict offenders
• male offending eg takeoff at 14 and decreases by 23 - theft burglary damage at first THEN assault, fraud and drug offences later on

Question 25

Self report studies ADVANTAGES

Answer 25

They can be very insightful and Interpretivists would advocate their use because of verstehen. Farmington stated that certain family factors can cause a person to become criminal during adolescence eg parental conflict and aggression can lead to violent crime. Highlighting such issues can help social policy and intervention to become more helpful when pinpointing certain individuals.

Question 26

Self report studies disadvantages

Answer 26

Marsh criticised the validity of self reports because they’re compromised by males over reporting due to bravado or trying to portray a hegemonic personality AND females tend to under report crimes which can be problematic.

It’s also not representative for a number reasons

• list doesn’t include all crimes, researcher must be selective and only include a few therefore it doesn’t give a full representation so feminists would argue when rape isn’t included and Marxists when corporate crime isn’t.
• issued to young people specifically so automatically ignored adult presence
• low response dates from offenders who are too scared of being convicted or police seeing they’ve done more than what they’ve already got on record