Crime Flashcards
Functionalism and crime
Accept official stats.
Seek to explain grazing crime levels committed by W/C.
Society causes crime.
Value consensus.
Causes of crime (Functionalism)
Adequate socialization.
Diversity of lifestyle and values.
Structural causes:anomie
Positive functions of crime (Durkheim)
Social change
Boundary maintenance
Social cohesion
Positive functions of crime:warning device
Clinard
Highlights there is something wrong with a social organization.
Cohen
Warns that an institution is not function properly.
Positive functions of crime:safety valve
Davis
Prostitution helps man’s sexual frustration without threatening nuclear family.
Polsky
Pornography help with sexual desires, prevent alternatives
Eva: Positive functions of crime
Ignores victim.
Criminals purpose was not to create social solidarity.
How much is too much or too little.
Not always functional.
Marxism, crime is only functional for R/C.
Causes of crime (strain theory)
Goals and means.
Blocked oppor so can’t achieve goals through legitimate means.
Responses to societal strain (Merton)
Conformity.
Innovation.
Ritualism.
Retreatism.
Rebellion
Eva:strain theory
Doesn’t explain group crime.
Failed to consider non utilitarian crime.
Takes official stats at face value.
Marxism, ignores the power of R/C.
Assumes there is value consensus.
To deterministic.
Doesn’t explain white-collar crime.
What’s subcultural theory?
Emerged our weaknesses of Merton’s anomie theory.
Explains group crime.
Subculture provide alternatives for those faced blocked oppor.
Deviance is the result of people conform to subculture n+v rather than mainstream.
Subcultural theory (Cohen)
Accept much of what Merton says on the structural origin of crime, W/C youth internalize main stream n+v through socialization but face blocked oppor.
W/C youth face status frustration.
Replace mainstream n+v
Subculture provide alternative means of gain status and strike back at unequal social system.
Subcultural theory (Cloward and Ohlin)
Accept Cohen’s view on structural origin but he fails to consider the variety of subcultures.
Subculture formation depends on access to illegitimate oppor.
Different neighborhoods provide different oppor.
What’s are the 3 types of subculture that Cloward and Ohlin found?
Criminal subculture-stable W/C environment, access to adult criminal network.
Conflict subculture-disorganized environment, lack cohesion and access to adult criminal network but value violence
Retreatist subculture-denied access on criminal or conflict subculture.
Subcultural theory (Miller)
Reject Cohen and Cloward and Ohlin view on structural origin, criticism the idea that subculture emerge as a reaction to anomie.
W/C youth never accept mainstream values, socialized into W/C values
Some over conform to W/C values due to concern of gain status.
Eva:subcultural theory
+
Generated many subsequent researches.
Willis support Miller.
Morrison support, Cohen and Cloward and Ohlin, underclass face blocked oppor due to position, lead to resentment and revenge.
-
Too readily accept official stats.
South, drug trade is a of conflict and criminal subculture.
Most delinquent not strongly committed to their subculture.
What did Bond theory (Hirschi) look at?
Why don’t people commit crime.
According to Hirschi, what’s the 4 crucial bonds?
Attachment-extent we care about others opinions
Commitment-what do we lose if we commit crime.
Involvement-is there time and space for such behavior.
Belief-sense that they should obey to rules of society.
Key study:Farmington and West
411 W/C males born in 1953, studied until late 30s.
Offenders were more likely to come from poorer, single parent with poor parenting and offender parents. Suggest good primary socialization is essential.
Eva:Hirschi
Doesn’t explain why bonds can weaken.
Doesn’t explain the variety of crime committed.
Suggest we all have potential to be criminals and should be more closely monitored
Marxism and crime
Reject official stats.
Crime is structurally caused.
Power and social control.
Qualitative.
Crime is socially constructed.
Causes of crime:capitalist society is criminogenic (Haggerty)
Crime is natural outcome of capitalism.
Crime is a national response to equality.
Profit and gain are seen as more important than the well-being of others.
Causes of crime:changes to labor market theorists
Lash and Urry
This organized capitalism, move abroad for cheap labor and exploitation.
Taylor
Marketization and privatization drive globalization and inc crime
Causes of crime:selective law enforcement (Chambliss)
One law for rich and another for poor.
Crime control focused on poor.
Rich less likely to be prosecuted or treated leniently.
Causes of crime:selective law enforcement (Pearce)
Crime of powerful are rarely prosecuted even discovered.
Give false impression that most crime is committed by W/C, divert attention away from exploitation to other members of their classes.
Causes of crime:law making (Chambliss)
Not to maintain value consensus but an instrument for R/C.
CJS protect private property and U/C interest.
Causes of crime:law making (Box)
Serious crime is ideologically constructed.
Crimes committed by corporations or gov are ignored.
Agencies of social control protect R/C power, criminalize people who oppose.
Laws used to control W/C in favor of capitalism.
Causes of crime:law making (Snider)
State pass health and safety laws or laws that regulate private business when forced.
Rarely enforce these when passed.
Have an idealogical and manipulative function
Neo Marxism and crime
Traditional Marxism is too deterministic, no one is forced to commit a crime.
Purpose of crime is chosen by the offender.
W/C crimes art act of resistance to oppression.
W/C criminals are seen almost as Robin Hood figures.
Neo Marxism and crime theorists
Gilroy
Black crime is a form of resistance against racism.
Taylor et al
Looks at both structural and interactionist approach us to causes of crime.
Developed the ‘a fully social theory of deviance’ blending labeling theory and Marxism.
What are the 6 dimensions of a fully social theory of deviance?
1.The wider structural origins of deviant acts.
2.The immediate origin of deviant act.
3.The deviant act itself and the meaning it offers.
4.The immediate social reactions to acts of deviance.
5.The wider social reactions to act of deviance.
6.The effect of labeling.
Explain Toxteth riots using Taylor et al’s theory
1.long term unemployment among Toxteth residents especially black.
2.racist policing strategies.
3. riots were political protest against economic equality and discrimination.
4.media coverage was biased, police response were confrontational and Thatcher refused to accept allegations of police racism
5.inappropriate regeneration schemes were created.
6. Black remain under police suspicion add more likely to be stopped and searched.
Eva:Marxism
+
Bennett found M/C more likely to be cautioned for same offense to W/C.
Sampson, powerless are more likely to be police, concentrated in poor areas due to the beliefs.
-
To readily accept official stats.
Over emphasize property crime.
Over emphasize class inequality.
Not all laws support R/C.
Ignore victims.
Police do try to protect public from victimization.
Definition of crime (postmodernism)
Socially constructed.
Based on natural legal definition, not reflecting the diversity.
Current definition is an expression of those with power.
Go beyond narrow legal definitions, based on justice and respect for people’s chosen identities and lifestyles.
Postmodernism and crime (Henry and Milovanovic)
Go beyond narrow legal definitions.
Embracing all threats and risks for the pursuit of diversity.
Re-conceptualized not simply as breaking laws but people use power to disrespect by causing some sort of harm.
2 forms of harm:
Harm of reduction – cause a victim to experience immediate loss or injury.
Harm of repression – restrict future human development.
Causes of crime (postmodernism)
Society is characterized by a fragmentation of social structure.
Traditional way of gaining roles of values has been replaced by uncertainty and choices.
Individualization.
Crime becomes a one off event. Motivated by an infinite number of individual causes.
Tackling crime (postmodernism)
Crime prevention strategies are fragmented.
Emphasize need for private crime prevention rather than reliance on police.
Should be localized by the community based.
Use surveillance techniques to control everyone not just offenders.
Labeling and crime
Reject official stats.
Reject structural causal explanations.
Looks at how crime is socially constructed.
In-depth qualitative approach.
Someone in power labels someone with less power as criminal causes crime
Labeling and crime:social construction of deviance (Becker)
What counts as crime is based on subjective decisions made by moral entrepreneurs.
Crime can be amplified by labeling cause master status.
SFP and possibly a career.
Criminals join subcultures to justify ad support their activities when accept their labels.
Crime is socially constructed, varies over time and culture.
Labeling and crime:social construction of deviance (Platt and Lembert)
Platt
Idea of juvenile delinquency was created due to campaign by U/C Victorian moral entrepreneur.
Lemert
Support Becker on the consequences.
Primary labelling-crime not labeled, few consequences.
Secondary labelling-deviance is labeled and affect individual.
Stigmatization, master status and SFP.
Who gets labeled?
Likelihood of prosecution depends on the label attached by agents of social control that’s affected by typifications.
Stats only show activities of the police and prosecutors.
Dark figure of crime.
Labeling depends on various factors.
Who gets labeled? (Piliavin and Briar)
Police decisions to arrest youth mainly based on physical cues.
Also gender, class add ethnicity and time and place.
Who gets labeled? (Young)
Hippies in Notting Hill labeled for primary deviance, see themselves as outsiders and develop deviant subculture.
Inc police attention and SFP.
Who gets labeled? (Cicourel)
Decisions to arrest influenced by stereotypes that’s based on common sense.
Concentrate on certain types and influence law enforcement.
W/C fit typifications, inc control and more arrest confirming their stereotype.
Who gets labeled? (Triplett and De Haan)
Triplett
Inc tendency to see young offenders as evil and less tolerant.
Inc in offending.
De Haan
Similar outcome in Holland as a result of inc stigmatization of young offenders.
Effect of labeling: Deviant amplification (Becker and Cohen)
Becker
The labeled gain master status and SFP.
Cohen
Deviancy amplification spiral, try to control deviance led to inc due to media amplifying and create moral panics.
Resulting in inc social control and then deviance.
Effect of labeling (Braithwaite)
Disintegrative shaming – crime and offender labeled as bad.
Re-integrative shaming, they boost the act but not the actor.
Labeling and crime:suicide studies
Durkheim
Discovered causes of suicide as how effectively society integrated individuals and regulated behavior. Interactionist reject the positivist approach and reliance on official stats.
Douglas
Interactionist approach.
Whether death comes to be officially labeled as suicide rather than accident or homicide depends on interactions and negotiations between social actors.
Have to know the meaning behind suicide.
Atkinson
Agrees official stats are merely a record of labels coroners attach.
Focus on taken for granted assumption.
Typical suicide
Eva:labeling and crime
+
Goffman, classic study of asylums show how hospitalization of mentally I’ll Linda’s to labelling, master status, SFP, amplification and stigma.
-
Fuller, girls study, labeling too deterministic
Ignores the real victim.
Focus on less serious crimes.
Assumes offenders are passive victims of labeling.
Fail to explain why people commit primary deviant.
Without labeling deviance would not exist.
Too readily dismiss official stats.
Left realism and crime
Golden era.
Post modern problems.
Rich poor divide.
Causes of crime:relative dep (Young)
Lethal combination is relative dep and individualism.
Encourage pursuit of self interest at expense of others.
Individualism weakens informal control
Causes of crime:subculture
Collective solution to relative dep.
Some turn to crime to close development gap, other find religion offers spiritual comfort.
Young, ghettos in USA fully immersed in American dream but blocked oppor so resort to street crime.
Causes of crime:marginalization
Lack goals and representation.
Workers have clear ghosts and organize dishes to represent.
But unemployed youth are marginalized, no organization to represent or goals, just resentment and frustration.
Victims (Young)
Aetiological crisis, crimes theoris tend to argue inc crime is dues to inc reporting.
Young argue more people are reporting due to more victims.
Disadv groups have greater risks of becoming victim, greater fear of crime and greater effect on lives but less likely to report and police are reluctant to deal with certain crimes.
Eva:left realism
Marxism, fail to explain corporate crime.
Interactionist, relies on quantitative data from victim service.
Relative dep doesn’t explain all crime.
Focus on high crime inner city areas, unrepresentative views.
Right realism and crime
Criticize other theories for failing to offer practical solutions.
Reject Marxist that crime is due to poverty and inequality, stating elderly tend to be poorer but have very low crime rate.
Causes of crime:biological differences (Wilson and Herrnstein and Herrnstein and Murray)
Wilson and Herrnstein
Caused by combo of biological and social factors.
Some are more predisposed to commit crime eg extroversion, low IQ
Herrnstein and Murray
Main cause of crime is low IQ, biologically determined
Causes of crime:socialization and underclass (Murray)
Inadequate socialization.
Welfare state inc dependency and matrifocal.
Lack role model
Causes of crime:rational choice (Clarke)
Crime is a choice based on rational calculations.
Eva:Right realism
Ignores wider structural cause.
Over state offenders rationality, doesn’t explain impulsive crime.
Overemphasis biology.
Young, 0 tolerance, crime already falling in New York.
Ignores call pro crime.
Gives police power to discriminate.
Over emphasize control of disorder rather than tackling the causes.
Biological explanations of crime
Lombroso-born criminal, can be identified by physical defects. 
Mutation in MAOA gene that help to control serotonin and dopamine level.
Psychological explanations of crime
IQ and school performance, neg interaction cause drop out and join subculture.
High IQ also likely to break law but less likely to get caught.
Temperament-individual characteristics identifiable as early as infancy that constitute habitual mode of emotionally responding to stimuli.
Why do women commit less crime?
Under reported
Sex role theory (Parsons)
Lack expressive role model (Cohen)
Why do women commit less crime:Control theory (Heidensohn)
Men control women in private and public sphere, fewer oppor.
Eva:control theory
There’re female criminals from background with strong male role model.
Fail to consider female on male domestic abuse.
Outdated
Why do women commit less crime:class and gender deal (Carlen)
Deal-perceived rewards that prevent offending.
Reject class deal, promise of rewards for legitimate work, but unable to earn a decent living.
Reject gender deal, promise of rewards from conventional family row, but face physical and sexual abuse.
Why women commit less crime:chivalry thesis (Pollak)
Men socialized into protecting women so hate to accuse.
CJS is more lenient with women so less likely to end up in official stats. Exaggerate, gender differences.
Eva:chivalry thesis
Farrigton and Morris, studied sentencing of theft and women were not sentenced leniently.
Buckle and Farrigton, observational study of shoplifting, 2x as many male shoplifting as women.
Ignores many crimes don’t get reported.
Simply just because their offences are less serious.
Heidensohn, court treat female harshly if deviate from gender norms.
Walklate, CJS is patriarchal.
Inc in female offending:liberation thesis (Adler)
Women become liberated.
Inc crimes diversity.
Gender role shifting
Eva:liberation thesis
Young research into girl gangs, rare but plenty girls only groups engage in deviant.
Chesney-Lind, most female criminal are W/C, least affected by liberation.
If equality is achieved why are male crime rates so much higher.
Why women commit less crime:feminization of poverty
Women more likely, living under poverty line, force into criminal activity
Gender and victimization
Victim survey, men more likely to be victims of violent crime.
Female more likely to be victims of domestic abuse and sexual assault. Kelly, women’s greater risk of domestic abuse and sexual assault is the result of patriarchy.
Eva: Gender and victimization
Dobash and Dobash, support the view that domestic abuse is a product of patriarchal marriage relationships.
Wilkinson, domestic abuse is the result of stress due to inequality rather than patriarchy
Causes of higher male crime rate: hegemonic masculinity (Messerschmidt)
Male achieve at express masculinity through crime.
Non-criminal means are unavailable to create these identities.
Causes of higher male crime rate:labeling and oppor
Labeling
Stereotyped, likely to be stop and searched, SFP
Labeled as provider.
Oppor
More oppor to commit blue and white collar crime.
Causes of higher male crime rate:postmodernism (Winlow)
Globalization cause de industrialization and unemployment.
Expansion of night time economy, gain money and show masculinity.
Ethnicity and stop and search
Black people make up 3% of population but 13% of the prison population.
Asian make up 6.5% of population and 7.7% of prison population.
BCS shows blacks, 8x and Asians 2x more likely to be stopped and searched.
Asians are 3x likely to be stopped and searched under terrorism act.
EM communities have lack trust in police, feel they are over policed and under protected.
Causes of ethnicity and crime rates
Police targeting (Philips and Browning)
Locality (Waddington et al)
Institutional racism (McPherson report)
Bond theory (Hirschi)
Subcultural theory (Lee and Young)
Political protest (Gilroy)
Neo Marxism (Hall et al)
Triple quandary (Sewell)
Right realism (Murray)
Black feminism
Educational success
Influence of rap
Victimization
Police recorded 54,000 racial incidents in Eng and Wales, 38,000 racially aggravated offences.
CSEW estimate 89,000
Reasons for victimization
Relative dep downwards.
Inferior, easier target
Effect of victimization
Psychological harm
Fear
Lack of faith