crime Flashcards
Durkheim (functionalist explanations)
crime as a normal part of all healthy societies- some individuals are inadequately socialised and prone to deviate. Crime fulfils two important positive functions: boundary maintenance and adaptation and change.
Merton (functionalist explanations)
an individual’s position in the social structure affects how they adapt to the strain to anomie: Conformity, Innovation, Ritualism, Retreatism, Rebellion
Cohen (functionalist explanations)
Status frustration- lack of status in school leads them to join subcultures for alternative status
Cloward and Ohlin (functionalist explanations)
Different neighbourhoods provide opportunities to learn criminal skills and develop criminal careers: Criminal, Conflict, Retreatist
Chambliss (marxist explanations)
laws to protect private property are the basis of the capitalist economy (selective law creation)
Snider (marxist explanations)
Capitalist states are reluctant to pass laws which regulate large capitalist concerns and which might threaten profitability
Gordon (marxist explanations)
Capitalist societies are ‘dog eat dog societies’ -Criminogenic capitalism.
Pearce (marxist explanations)
Health and safety laws give capitalism ‘caring’ face, they create false consciousness.
Hall et al (marxist explanations)
saw a moral panic over black ‘muggers’ that served the interests of capitalism in dealing with a crisis
Becker (interactionist explanations)
labelling theory- social groups create deviance by creating rules and applying them to particular people whom they label as outsiders
Lemert (interactionist explanations)
labelling certain people as deviant, society actually encourages them to become more so: Primary and secondary
Cicourel (interactionist explanations)
argues that police use typifications of the ‘typical delinquent’.
Cohen (interactionist explanations)
study of the mods and rockers uses the concept of deviance amplification spiral: Media exaggeration - deviance amplification spiral
Wilson (right realist explanations)
crime is caused by a combination of biological and social factors- biological differences make some people predisposed to commit crime
Wilson and Kelling (right realist explanations)
argue that we must keep neighbourhoods orderly to prevent crime taking hold- ‘zero tolerance’ policing
Murray (right realist explanations)
the nuclear family is being undermined by the welfare state, creating welfare dependency and the growth of an underclass who fail to socialise their children properly
Lea and Young (left realist explanations)
identify three related causes of crime: Relative deprivation, Subculture, Marginalisation
Young (left realist explanations)
the problem of working class crime is worse, due to: Harsher welfare policies, increased unemployment, job insecurity and poverty
Merton (crime and class)
crime is higher among the wc because there are less opportunities to achieve through legitimate means
Snider (crime and class)
the cost of White Collar Crime and Corporate Crime to the economy far outweighs the cost of street crime by ‘typical’ criminals.
Lea and Young (crime and class)
argue that crime has its roots in deprivation, but deprivation itself is not directly responsible for crime
Sutherland (crime and class)
crime was not exclusively a lower-class phenomenon; happens in middle and upper classes as well
Miller (crime and class)
the lower class has an independent subculture opposed to mainstream culture and this explains their higher crime rate.
Newburn and Rock (crime and class)
Criminal justice systems often focus more on crimes committed by disadvantaged individuals rather than those committed by socially privileged individuals.
Heidensohn (crime and gender)
Women commit less crime since patriarchal control limits chances to offend
Carlen (crime and gender)
argues that working-class women are generally led to conform through the promise of two ‘deals’: The class deal -working women get a good life; The gender deal - conform to the gender role and get material and emotional rewards of family life
Pollak (crime and gender)
men have a protective attitude towards women, so they are unwilling to arrest, charge, prosecute or convict them- chivalry thesis
Adler (crime and gender)
‘liberation thesis’ - that as women become liberated from patriarchy, their offending will become similar
to men’s
Messerschmidt (crime and gender)
crime is a resource some subordinated men use to accomplish masculinity
Winlow (crime and gender)
globalisation and de-industrialisation mean that some men now achieve masculinity through paid work and crime in the night-time economy.
Gilroy (crime and ethnicity)
the idea of black criminality is a myth created by racist stereotypes of Africans and Asians- CJS acts on these racist stereotypes
Bowling and Phillips (crime and ethnicity)
there have been many allegations of oppressive policing of minority communities, including: Mass stop and search operations, paramilitary tactics etc
Macpherson Report (crime and ethnicity)
found institutional racism in the Metropolitan Police.
Lammy Review (crime and ethnicity)
found significant racial bias in the UK justice system.
CSEW (crime and ethnicity)
Individuals identifying within “Mixed or Multiple ethnic groups” were more likely to be victims of CSEW headline crime
Felson (crime and the media)
The media portray criminals and victims as older and more middle-class than those usually found in the criminal justice system- ‘age fallacy’.
Hall (crime and the media)
moral panic over ‘mugging’ served to distract attention from the crisis of capitalism
Jewkes (crime and the media)
the internet creates opportunities to commit both conventional crimes, e.g. fraud, and ‘new crimes using new tools’, e.g. software piracy.
S Cohen and Young (crime and the media)
news is not discovered but made: News doesn’t simply exist ‘out there’, its is gathered- news values influencing the selection of crime stories include: Immediacy, Dramatisation, Personalisation, Simplification, Risk, Violence
McRobbie and Thornton (crime and the media)
moral panics are now routine and have less impact, there is little consensus about what is deviant
Wall (crime and the media)
four categories of cybercrime: cyber-trespass, e.g. hacking; cyber-deception; cyber-pornography, and cyber-violence
Castells (Globalisation, green crime, state crime, corporate crime, human rights)
there is a global criminal economy worth over £1 trillion per annum.
Glenny (Globalisation, green crime, state crime, corporate crime, human rights)
examined ‘McMafia’ – organisations that emerged in Russia and Eastern Europe after the fall of communism-
Gas and coal etc were kept cheap under new government so well-connected citizens with access to large funds could buy these up very cheaply and sell them on the world market
Tombs (Globalisation, green crime, state crime, corporate crime, human rights)
Corporate crime is concludes that ‘widespread, routine and pervasive’. It includes: financial crimes, crimes against consumers, e.g. selling unfit goods, crimes against employees etc
Hobbs and Dunningham (Globalisation, green crime, state crime, corporate crime, human rights)
found the way crime is organised is linked to globalisation- they conclude that crime works as a ‘glocal’ system – locally based, but with global connections.
Winlow (Globalisation, green crime, state crime, corporate crime, human rights)
study of bouncers in Sunderland- globalisation and de-industrialisation have created new criminal opportunities and patterns at a local level.
Bauman (Globalisation, green crime, state crime, corporate crime, human rights)
individualism and consumer culture means that individuals are left to weigh the costs and benefit of their decisions and choose the best course to bring them the highest rewards. This can lead to people taking part in criminal activity in order to achieve the consumer lifestyle- e.g drugs trade
Taylor (Globalisation, green crime, state crime, corporate crime, human rights)
globalisation creates new patterns of inequality. winners = rich financial investors; losers =workers . The disadvantaged in both the developing and developed world face greater insecurity and greater relative deprivation which then feeds criminal behaviour.
Wolf (Globalisation, green crime, state crime, corporate crime, human rights)
Those in the developing world and EM are more likely to be victims of environmental crime due to inability to move from the areas where toxic dumping takes place for example.
Durkheim (Crime control, surveillance, victims, punishment)
identifies two types of justice, corresponding to two types of society: Retributive justice- punished; Restitutive justice - repair the broken trust
Felson (Crime control, surveillance, victims, punishment)
gives an example of a situational crime prevention strategy- the New York bus terminal, designed crime out.
Braithwaite (Crime control, surveillance, victims, punishment)
Distinguished between disintegrative shaming (named and shamed) and reintegrative shaming (acknowledging whats wrong and improving)
Foucault (Crime control, surveillance, victims, punishment)
contrasts two different forms of power. 1. Sovereign power- punished by monarch. 2. Disciplinary power -govern not just the body, but also the mind through surveillance (e.g panopticon)
Mathiesen (Crime control, surveillance, victims, punishment)
in late modernity, there is an increase in both the top-down surveillance- ‘Synopticon’ – where everybody watches everybody.
Feely and Simon (Crime control, surveillance, victims, punishment)
actuarial justice as a new form of surveillance. It uses ‘actuarial analysis’ (statistical calculations of risk) to predict the likelihood of people offending
