All Sociologists Flashcards
Bowlby
Psychological explanation
Individuals who are deprived of maternal love in the first few years of their life are likely to develop personality traits which lead them to commit crime
Bennett
Crime is a result of growing up surrounded by deviant, delinquent, criminal adults in a practically perfect in criminogenic environment - one that seems almost consciously designed to produce vicious predatory unrepentant street criminals
Braithwaite
Positive role for labelling process.
Reintegrative shaming - labels the act, not the actor - ‘he has done a bad thing’ rather than ‘he is a bad person’
It makes them aware of the negative impact of their actions, without stigmatising the offender as evil
Burgess
Deviance is the product of social disorganisation. Changes such as rapid population turnover and migration create instability, distrusting family and community structures. These become unable to exercise social control over individuals, resulting in deviance
Burke
Neo Marxist
Critical criminology is too general to explain crime and too idealistic to be useful in tackling crime.
Carson
Neo Marxist
Laws that seem to be for the benefit of the working class (such as workplace health and safety) are often not rigorously enforced.
Study of 200 firms, found all had broken h&s laws, yet only 1.5% resulted in prosecution
Chambliss
Laws to protect private property are the cornerstone of the capitalist society.
Britain’s East African colonies: forced people to pay tax - as the money to pay tax could only be earned by working on the plantations, the law served the economic interests of the capitalist plantation owners
Cicourel
The negotiation of justice Officers' decisions to arrest are influenced by their stereotypes about offenders. Their typifications led them to concentrate on certain types. This results in law enforcement showing a class bias, with police patrolling working class areas more intensively, resulting in more arrests and confirming their stereotypes
Clarke
The decision to commit crime is a choice based on a rational calculation of the likely consequences. If the rewards of crime outweigh the costs, then people will be more likely to offend
Cloward
Subcultural theory
There are both legitimate and illegitimate opportunity structures
Yet crime depends on the access of frustrated w/c to criminal gangs
Those who fail in both structures retreat from society, turning to drink or drugs
S Cohen
Folk devils and moral panics
Study of the societal reaction to the mods and rockers - youths at clacton 1964
Press exaggeration and distorted reporting began a moral panic - police arrested more youths and courts imposed harsher penalties.
Demonising them as ‘folk devils’ caused further marginalisation as outsiders, leading to more deviant behaviour
Cohen - Status frustration
Working class boys face anomie in middle class school - suffer cultural deprivation Their inability to succeed leaves them with low status - they suffer status frustration, which they resolve through rejecting middle class values, and forming a delinquent subculture
Cohen - social order
Deviance maintains social order:
Some forms of deviance provide a safety valve for releasing tension without threatening social stability
Deviant behaviour is used as a warning device by society to identify emerging social problems which can then be dealt with
Cromwell
Right realism - Supports Felson’s guardian theory
In the chaos immediately following hurricane Andrew in Florida, patrols by local citizens to protect property during the absence of police prevented looting, and crime rates actually went down
Durkheim
Deviancy allows for social change to occur - if society reacts positively to deviant behaviour it starts the process for that behaviour to be seen as non deviant in the future
Downes
Definition of deviance:
Banned or controlled behaviour which is likely to attract punishment or disapproval.
Supports Messner - societies that spend more on welfare have lower rates of imprisonment
Eysenck
Psychological explanation
Individuals who commit crime have inherited psychological characteristics which predispose them to crime
Felson
Right realism - guardian theory
For a crime to occur, there must be a motivated offender, a suitable target, and the absence of a capable guardian. Offenders often act rationally, so the presence of a guardian deters them from offending.
Informal guardians such as in the community are more effective than formal ones such as the police.
Foucault
Deviance is relative
Definitions of criminal deviance, sexual deviance, and madness have changed throughout history. Deviance changes with time and place as values, norms, and social expectations change
Gordon
Crime is a rational response to the capitalist system as it is found in all classes
Hall
Neo Marxist
Applied Taylor’s approach to explain the moral panic over mugging in the 70s
Herrnstein
Right realist
The main cause of crime is low intelligence, which is biologically determined
Lemert
Primary deviance: deviant acts that haven’t been publicly labelled - no single cause, often trivial (fare dodging)
Secondary deviance: result of societal reaction, being caught and publicly labelled as a criminal (stigma, shame, excluded) may result in being seen as the label - master status, leading to self fulfilling prophesy
Lombroso
Physiological explanation
Doctor famous for theory that criminals are genetically different - there are outward signs of the criminal personality (large jaw, extra fingers or toes)
Lilly
Against biological explanations of crime
IQ differences account for less than 3% of differences in offending
Matza
Delinquency and drift
Most delinquents are not strongly committed to their subculture as strain theories suggest, but merely drift in and out of delinquency
Merton
Strain theory - Crime is a response to failing to achieve society’s cultural goals.
American dream (status and wealth) causes strain due to inequalities in opportunities (structural), and the strong emphasis on succeeding with little emphasis on using legitimate means (cultural).
An individual’s position in society affects how they respond to the strain of anomie: conform, innovate, ritual, retreat, rebel
Miller
The lower class has it’s own independent subculture, separate from mainstream culture with its own values. Their culture does not value success so members are not frustrated by failure. Deviance arises out of an attempt to achieve their own goals rather than mainstream ones
Messner
Institutional anomie
The American dream’s obsession with individual money success and its ‘winner takes it all’ mentality exert pressure towards crime by encouraging an anomic cultural environment in which people are encouraged to adopt an ‘anything goes mentality in the pursuit of wealth.
In capitalist societies lacking adequate welfare provision, high rates of crime are inevitable
Murray
Right realist The crime rate is increasing due to a growing underclass who are defined by their deviant behaviour and fail to socialise their children properly - growing due to welfare dependancy. This led to the decline of marriage, and the growth of lone parent families - absent fathers, boys lack paternal discipline - delinquent role models gain status through crime, rather than supporting their families through a steady job. The underclass is not only a source of crime, but threatens society's cohesion by undermining the values of hard work and personal responsibility.
Plummer
The same act can be seen as deviant, depending on the situation
E.g. Being naked acceptable in own home, yet deviant in public. Killing people is deviant unless you’re a soldier at war.
Rock
We cannot predict whether someone who has been labelled will follow a deviant career, because they are always free to choose to not deviate further
Savelsberg
Strain theory
Post communist societies in Eastern Europe saw a rapid rise in crime after the fall of communism in 1989.
This is due to the rise in communism’s collective values being replaced by new western capitalist goals of individual money success
Pearce
Neo Marxist Laws that seem to be for the benefit of the working class (such as workplace health and safety) often benefit the ruling class too (keeping workers fit for work). By giving capitalism a caring face, these laws also create false consciousness among the workers
Shaw
Cultural transmission theory
Some neighbourhoods develop a criminal culture that is transmitted through generations, while other neighbourhoods remain relatively crime free during this time
Snider
Neo Marxist
The capitalist state is reluctant to pass laws that regulate the activities of businesses or threaten their profitability
Reiman
Neo Marxist The more likely a crime is committed by higher class people, the less likely it is to be treated as a criminal offence. With crimes committed mostly by the higher classes, such as safety violations and serious tax evasion, the criminal justice system takes a more forgiving view.
South
The drug trade is a mixture of both disorganised crime (conflict subculture) and professional mafia style criminal subcultures
Sutherland
Deviance is behaviour learned through social interaction with others who are deviant, both criminal values and skills
Slapper
Neo Marxist
Corporate crime is under policed and rarely prosecuted or severely punished.
This encourages companies to use crime as a means of making profit, often at the expense of their workers or consumers.
Taylor, Walton, Young
Criticise Subcultural theories for assuming that the majority of people aspire to the mainstream goals of success and wealth - individuals and deviant groups such as hippies do not share these goals
Triplett
There is an increasing tendency to see young offenders as evil and to be less tolerant of minor deviance. The harsh criminal justice sentences has resulted in an increase in offending
Wilson
Right realist
Biosocial theory of criminal behaviour
Crime is caused by both biological and social factors. Biological differences make some more predisposed to commit crime than others (personality traits: aggressive, risk taking).
Wilson - choice of crime
If the supply and value of legitimate opportunities was declining at the very time that the cost of illegitimate opportunities was also declining, a rational teenager might well conclude that it made more sense to steal cars than to wash them
Young - secondary deviance
Secondary deviance - hippy marijuana users
Initially primary deviance, however persecution and labelling by the police led them to see themselves as outsiders. They developed a deviant subculture
Kelling
Environmental factors - Broken windows
Maintaining the quality and orderly character of neighbourhoods is essential in preventing crime. Any sign of deterioration such as graffiti or vandalism, should be dealt with or else crime will increase
Webb
Environmental factors
High rates of thefts and pickpocketing at a Birmingham market - most occurred where the stalls were most densely packed.
When the market was redesigned, stalls were set further apart and lighting improved, resulting in thefts falling by nearly 70%
Jones
Criticises right realism
Their policies in the USA failed to prevent the crime rate rising.
A zero tolerance policy gives police free rein to discriminate against ethnic minority youths.
The crime figures don’t reveal the truth, as there has been a displacement of crime to other areas.
Young - deprivation
Left realist
Explains the paradox of society being both more prosperous and crime-ridden
Although people are wealthier, they are more aware of relative deprivation due to media and ads, raising expectations for material possessions. Those who cannot afford them may resort to crime instead.
Young - individualism
With relative deprivation, this is a ‘lethal combination’, causing crime by encouraging the pursuit of self interest at the expense of others.
It causes the disintegration of families and communities by undermining the values of mutual support and selflessness - this weakens social control which creates a spiral of increasing crime.
Pryce
Religious subcultures encourage respectability and conformity.
In the African Caribbean community of Bristol, there is a variety of subcultures and lifestyles: hustlers (pleasure seeking and criminal), Rastafarians, saints (Pentecostalists), and working class ‘respectables’
Young - marginalisation
Left realist
Marginalised groups lack clear goals and organisations to represent their interests.
Workers have clear goals (better pay and conditions) and organisations (trade unions) so do not resort to violence to achieve goals.
Unemployed youth are marginalised, they only have a sense of resentment and frustration, expressing this through criminal means of violence and rioting.
Kinsey
Police clear up rates are too low to act as a deterrent to crime. They spend too little time actually investigating crime.
The police depend on the public to provide them with information about crimes - 90% of crimes are reported to the police by the public. As they are losing public support especially in inner city areas, ethnic minorities, and young, the flow of info dries up and so police rely on military policing (stop and search) which alienates communities (vicious circle)
