Crime Flashcards
Durkheim
Causes -
Poor socialisation, Anomie
Functions of Crime -
Social change, Social solidarity, Safety valve, Warning device
There can be too much crime - threatens societal norms and values
EVAL - Y - Link between poor socialisation and crime, crime can reinforce collectivism. X - Not clear how much crime is needed, not all poorly socialised people commit crime
Merton
Strain theory - Societal pressure to reach monetary success leads to crime. They deal with this is various ways
Conformity - achieve success through accepted means
Innovation - Achieve success through deviant means
Ritualism - Give up on goals but accept the means e.g unemployment/low wage
Retreatism - Reject both goals and means and become societal rejects, e.g drug addicts/ homeless
Rebellion - Rejects goals and means but replaces them with new ones to bring about societal change. E.g hippies
Cohen - Subcultural
Working-class boys experience status frustration - cant achieve status in mainstream society and blocked avenues of success
To cope with frustration they create their own goals forming an alternative status hierarchy
they reject the mainstream values and join others in similar situations forming a delinquent subculture
EVAL - Y - Does explain why gang cultures emerge, It does explain non-utilitarian crime. X - assumes W/C boys start off sharing middle-class success goals and ignores the possibility that they didn’t share these goals in the first place so they never saw themselves as failures
Cloward and Ohlin
Combination of Cohen and Merton, argues that there are 3 different subcultures
Criminal subcultures - Develop in W/C areas and established crime e.g. mafias. Young criminals enter into a criminal career ladder as an alt to legitimate jobs, mostly/only utilitarian crime
Conflict - emerges in socially disorganised areas with a high population turnover and lack of social cohesion. Characterised by violence and street crimes
Retreatist - a more individual response in which they can’t engage in the other subcultures or mainstream culture. Drugs and addiction paid for by petty theft or prostitution.
EVAL - Y - more advanced than Merton’s or Cohen’s as it explains different types of deviance and why they occur N - It assumes everyone starts with the same mainstream goals, Ignores crimes of the wealthy
EVAl of subcultural theories
Edgework - Katz and Lyng commit crime for thrill-seeking
Delinquency and drift - Matza criticises for them saying that once they join a delinquent subculture they stay there forever, he argues that individuals drift in and out of delinquency using techniques of neutralisation
Criminogenic Capitalism - Marxism
crime is inevitable due to its nature - Gordon says crime is a rational response to to the competitiveness and inequality of life
Poverty - crime may be the only way to survive
The only way to obtain consumer goods
alienation and lack of control lead to frustration and aggression then non-utilitarian crimes
Capitalism encourages crimes to gain an edge over competitors leading to white collar crime
Selective law creation
Law-making serves the interest of the capitalist class
Chambliss - argues that laws to protect private property are the cornerstone of the capitalist economy
The ruling class have the power to prevent the introduction of laws that would threaten their interests
Laws perform an ideological function for capitalism by passing laws that appear to benefit the W/C rather than capitalism. Pearce argues that laws often benefit the R/C by giving capitalism a ‘caring’ face these laws create false consciousness among the workers.
Selective law enforcement
Box - Criminal justice system disproptionately targets the poor an working class while often ignoring or minimally punishing white collar crimes
CJS serves an ideological purpose by promoting the idea that crime is primarily the problem of lower classes this diverts the attention from harmful activities of the R/C
Divides the working class as they blame each other for their problems rather than capitalism
Marxism evaluation
Y - Explains a wide variety of crimes across different classes, also links the interests of the ruling class and law-making
X - capitalism doesn’t always produce high crime rates and assumes communism will solve all crimes. ignore the relationship between crime and other inequalities such as ethnicity and gender
Neo marxist
They combine Marxist ideas with other approaches like labelling theory
Crime is a choice not driven by economic necessity
Crimes of the powerful
Sutherland - defined white-collar crime as “a crime committed by a person of respectability and high social status in the course of their occupation
Occupational crime - commited by employees for their own personal gain often against the org they work for e.g claiming false expenses from the company or overcharging customers
Corporate crime - Crimes commited by or on behalf of a large company and directly profits the company rather than individuals. Corporate crime is moticated by the desire to increase profits
Under representation of white collar crime/ corporate crime-
Hard to detect - appearing to be normal, coverups
Involves very powerful people - can persuade govt
May benefit both parties - Bribery
institutional protection - not prosecuted, dealt with by fines
Interactionalism - Lemert
Primary and Secondary deviance
Primary deviance - deviance that has not been labelled as such, Breaking the law and committing deviance but hasnt been found yet and as such there arent any deviance
Secondary Deviance - Once an offender is discovered and publicly exposed and the labe of deviance is attached. results in the stigma of the crime becoming their master status and therefore produces more deviance and hostile reactions from society therefore reinforcing the status
EVAL - Y - shows importance of the reactions of others in defining and creating deviance
X - Lemert doesnt explain why people commit primary deviance in the first place. It also assumes that an act isnt realy deviant until it is labelled as such yet people know what they are is deviant
Labelling - Howard Becker
Argued that deviance is created by society, those who enforce the rules decide what is deviant and label those who break their rules as deviant. Its not the act that is deviant but the reaction of others that defines it e.g heroin as medicine is fine but as a stimulant its deviant
Interactionalists focus on agents of social control and their actions in defining labelling and punishing crime
EVAL - Y - Becker helps to show that crime stats are more a record of the activities of the police rather than of criminals
X - It is deterministic impliying that once someone is labelled a deviant career is inevitable. Ignores the fact that individuals may actively choose deviance
Labelling process
Jock Young - “the drug takers” gives an example of labelling creating deviancy amplification. He shows how interaction between between the hippies and police produced more crime rather than less. this is due to media coverage on hippies and drug taking which leads to police going after them. This means hippies have to act more secret and drug taking becomes more of their identity.
This leads to increasing distrust and hippy deviance leads a “crime wave” and they become a “folk devil”
Cicourel
Cicourel’s study examines how police officers decisions to arrest are influenced by their stereotypes about offenders. He discovered that police officers relied on assumptions about typical delinquents leading to a class bias in law enforcement with police focussing on these areas reinforcing the stereotypes
As such teenagers were far more likely to be stopped, searched, arrested and charged. middle class kids were more likely to be counselled, cautioned and released futhermore middle class parents are seen as respectable and reasonale people from a nice neighbourhood and are willing to cooperate with the police
Thus the process of justicce is a process of negotiation and middle class respectable people are far more successful at this - lavinia woodward. can be also be applied to gender and ethnicity
EVA- Fails to explain how subjective meanings occur, doesn’t explain how different groups have different levels of power e.g. ruling class just make the law cater to themselves
Ethnicity - Invalid Statistics - Institutional racism
- Bowling and Philips - Selective law enforcement there is an atmosphere where racism is allowed to spread - Macpherson report
- Reiner - supports this with the suggestion that there is a ‘Canteen culture’ among the police which includes suspicion, macho values and racism this encourages racist stereotypes within the police, spreads to new recruits who join the canteen culture and take in those prejudices, therefore the higher crime stats are a product of racial prejudice, More likely to get caught rather than a matter of higher offending rates
- Cicourel - found that Black and Asian offenders are more likely to be charged rather than cautioned, remanded rather than bailed, given prison sentences rather than than probation/community punishment compared to white people
- Hall - Moral panics around black people committing crime is a scapegoat to distract attention from the true cause of problems, Capitalism
Green Crime
Two views of Harm -
Anthropocentric - use criminal law to define behaviour and investigate the patterns and causes of law breaking. However many green crimes arent classed as Criminal. They assume himans have a right to dominate nature for profit and own ends
Ecocentric view - considers harm rather than law. White says that criminology should study any action that harms the enviroment and those in it. Sees humans and enviroment as interdependent
Wolf - 4 groups that commit green crime - Indivdiuals, Buisnesses, govts and organised crime
Inequality in harms and victims of Green crime - ‘Enviromental racism’ - refers to minority groups that face the worse enviromental damage, exposing them to more pollution. Working class-areas are more likely to be affected by enviromental pollution and foul odours that lower the quality of life
Green Crime cont
Risk Society - Beck argues that green crime is manufactured, not natural therefore as more countries become industrialised, the amount of green crime may spread
these risks can have disastrous consequences, enviromental harm isnt confined to one location, the impact is global, green crimes can trigger knock on effects as people compete for scarce resources
Problems of research - Different Laws: official statistics may not be comparable. Different Definitions: disputes of what counts as green crime. Difficulties in measurment: Green crime is typically carried out by the powerful who can conceal their crimes or avoid persecution.
Green crime and theory
Marxist - govt dont want to drive away companies who boost economy, companies can lobby, = selective law enforcement
Green washing - market itself as enviromentally friendly while not being so in order to up the price and make customers feel better about themselves and buy it
Labeling - The green label/enviromentally friendly has a positive connotion.
Strain - Companies commit green crime in order to reach profit margins - Innovation - EVA - rational choice
Ecofem - special relation between women and enviroment. men are seen as responsible for the damage. they treat nature as something to be dominated and used. Women are therefore seen as vital to attempts to protect the env
EVA - a lot of green crime is legal - definitions make this problematic
Bio-piracy - seen as advancing medicine
not all companies deliberatly damage the env
State Crime
Most Serious? - The scale of state crime - huge amount of power the state can wield - Green and Ward estimate govt murdered 262 million people in 20th century. The state is what determines the Law meaning it can decriminalise its actions. The state is the highest authority in its own borders and groups like the UN dont always have enough power to intervene - Selective law enforcement.
The power of the state allows for large scale violence - they have a monopoly on violence
Able to hide crimes and escape punishment
Hard to intervene without escalation
Example of State crime
Kleptocratic regimes - robbing populations and human rights abuses
Clientelism - Corupt granting of favours by politicians in return for financial/political support
Patriomonialism - give jobs and personal loyalties to relatives and friends
McLaughlin - 4 types - Political crimes - Corruption and Censorship e.g Honours scandal L.G
Crimes by security and police - genocide and torture e.g Israel
Economic crimes - official violations of health and safety laws e.g Bp oil spill
Social and cultural crimes - institutional racsim e.g Jim crow
State-corporate crime - initiated/facilitated corporate crime -
Challenger disaster in 80s due to cost cutting and negligence = state initiated
Deepwater horizon oil rig = state facilitated as they failed to regulate and control corporate behaviour
Definition of State crime
State crime is a social construct - Sociologists disagree on what counts as state crime
Domestic law: Chambliss sees state crime as an illegal acts done by an official in their role as representative of the state. This means its easy to measure bu the state has the power to define what is illegal.
Zemiology: state crime should be based on harm done. it would bypass states decriminalising their actions its problematic because its a subjective definition
International Law: any action by or on behalf of the state that breaks international law. no subjective definition and states aren’t able to change the law but international law is heavily influenced by the worlds richest and most powerful countries, its has an unbalanced focus on state crimes such as more focus on War crimes rather than corruption.
Human rights: Schwendinger argues it should be defined by as any act by the state or its agents that violates human rights. Cohen says some acts break human rights but aren’t criminal.
Issues - There are not objective international laws. State crime is committed by the powerful so its difficult to police. They aren’t as obvious as other crimes so difficult if they are political or economic
Explanations of state crime
Crime of obedience - Authorisation - moral principles are overridden by duty to obey. Routinisation - turn the act into a routine that they can detach themselves from. Dehumanisation - the enemy is portrayed as sub-human so therefore normal principles don’t apply to them
Bauman suggests there are key features to make state crimes possible - Division of labour. Bureaucratisation - normalise the killing and make it repetitive/job-like. Instrumental rationality - rational efficient methods are used to achieve a goal. Science and technology.
EVA - not all examples of state crimes are highly organised - Rwanda
Ideological factors are important
Why commit State crime
Green and Ward use 2 theories - Integrated theory: explains why people at the very top give the orders. Crimes of obedience - explains why people follow these orders.
Kramer argues there are a variety of reason but involve a combination of three things. Motive, opportunity, failure of control mechanisms: lack of things that would prevent the crime.
Culture of Denial - pressure from human rights conventions means they have to go to greater lengths to conceal their abuses or relabel them-
It didn’t happen. If it did happen its not a crime. Even if it is a crime it was necessary.
Matza - ‘Neutralisation’ - Denial of victim, Denial of injury (we are the real victims), Condemning the condemners, Appeal to higher loyalty(defending democracy and freedom).
Cohen argues though these two techniques states can justify their human rights abuses to themselves, the agents who carry out the acts and the rest of the world.
Reintegrative shaming
Braithwaite - identifies a positive role of shaming, label the act as wrong not the person, avoids stigmatism and makes it easier for the person to reenter the perpetrator back into society, argues this lowers crime rates,
Avoids pushing them back into secondary deviance
Right realism causes
Biological difference - low intelligence and personality traits make some people more likely to commit crime than others
Poor socialisation - Murray argues that growing underclass who don’t properly socialise their children is increasing the crime rate, says the underclass are dependant on the welfare state and seek immediate gratification
Rational choice - Assumes individuals have free will and reasoning, the decision to commit crime is a choice based on the likely consequences and what they could get out of committing the crime. Wilson - suggests perceived cost of crime is low and this is why crime rate has increased e.g. shoplifting outweighs the risk of getting caught
Right realism solutions - Situational crime prevention (tackles rational choice)
Target hardening - locking doors, neighborhood watch, alarms, CCTV, reduce opportunity and increase the likelihood of being caught
Felson - New York bus depot, problems with luggage theft and drug dealing - reshaped the physical environment e.g. large sinks replaced so people couldn’t bathe in them. Was successful
EVA - simply displaces crime rather than getting rid of it
Some crimes are irrational and impulsive e.g. Edgework and vandalism
Right realism prevention - Environmental crime prevention
Brown window thesis from Wilson and kelling - argues a minor sign of neglect e.g. broken window, could lead to climate of disorder and gradual deterioration of neighborhoods and then the area becomes a magnet for deviants.
Environmental improvement strategy - repairing and cleaning up neighborhoods so that it looks as if people care
Zero tolerance policing - cracking down on all antisocial and criminal behavior which threatens social order even if it isn’t strictly illegal, this will halt neighborhood decline and more serious crime
EVA - once again crime is just displaced
Hard to put in practice, manpower and money is need
Right realism prevention - Increased social control
Make parents take more responsibility for their children, socializing then more effectively into conformist behavior those who didn’t can be punished
Communal protection notices and criminal behavior orders - trucking down on anti social behavior through naming and shaving measures
Appreciation of offenders e.g. Electronic tagging
Reducing benefits - forces people to get jobs so less opportunity to commit crime
Harsh punishments - longer prison sentences, inconveniences incapacitates the criminal but also acts as a deterrent
Left realism causes
Relative deprivation - people feel a gap between what they expect and what they get, the media makes people want more material things. Those who can’t afford it may turn to crime. Young - argues there is a difference between cultural inclusion and economic exclusion. The poor see materialistic messages from the media but can’t afford to buy things, calls this bulimic society. This exclusion leads to more crime affecting all social levels not just the poorest
Marginalization- groups lack both clear groups and goals and organization to represent their interests e.g. unemployment youth. Being peeled to use political means to improve position they express their frustration through criminal means such as violence
Subcultures - arise in response to such problems e.g. blocked opportunities, failure to achieve mainstream goals
Left realism prevention
Focus on structural causes - improve welfare, create jobs, fair wages and good education Policies to reduce material and deprivation
EVA - Provides solution rather than deterrent, Increases welfare dependence (new right)
Community based policing - Build positive relationships with police officers and the public so they get to know likely offenders, PACT meetings where locals identify issues and help set priority
EVA - Marxist - White collar and corporate crime, Deflect attention away from harder practical crime prevention
Rehabilitation - Youth groups for socialising and alt to crime, Community service and victim offender mediation to reduce chance of reoffending
EVA - Soft on crime downplays role of offender, Costly
PostMod - Causes
Post mod argue there is no single explanation, don’t look at structural reasons but how postmod society has led to new forms of crime and the responses to it, increasing self-focussed = less concerned about committing crime, Crime and anti-social behaviour is just another way to construct an identity, Crime becomes a one off event that reflects a lifestyle choice and can be motivated by a number of reasons. Edgework - people commit crime for the excitement and thrills they get from risk-taking, explore boundaries between legal and criminal behaviour, Crime may be committed simply for the kicks derived from doing so with neither rational choice or structural factors playing a part
Hate Crimes - Crimes perceived to be motivated by hostility or prejudice based on a person’s ethnicity, religion, Sexual orientation or disability. Levin and McDevitt - People who commit hate crimes derive excitement and pleasure and an escape from everyday routines by inflicting suffering on those they perceive to be different from themselves, those with low-esteem may gain status by committing hate crime among their peers
EVA - Offers explanations for non-utilitarian crimes such as hate crimes and anti-social behaviour, shows crime can be an emotional response sometimes
Fails to recognise that many people still have ideas of ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ behaviour, which underpins the law, stats show patterns in crime challenging the view that crime is an individual one-off event
Crime as a social harm
Henry and Milovanovic - crime should be reviewed so that it is not just about breaking laws but about people using power to show disrespect for others by causing them harm. 2 forms of harm:
Harms of reduction - someone uses their power in a way which results in an immediate loss of a possession or causes some sort of injury
Harms of repression - When peoples future growth and development are threatened, includes harms threatening human dignity and respect e.g. sexual harassment, racist abuse and hate crimes
EVA - Provides fuller picture of crime past the traditional approach because the idea of crime as harm includes a range of behaviour that has previously been neglected in law and in sociological theories.
Does not address the major cause of a lot of crimes which lies in structural inequalities, fails to offer any suggestion about how social harm might be operationalised
The Control of Crime
1) Increasing use of control agencies like private security firms controlling entry to shopping centres or neighbourhoods
2) Use of surveillance techniques to control everyone not just offenders e.g. CCTV, face rec, ring doorbells, etc. Become surveillance societies where everyday becomes less private and ICTs enable total social control
3) Foucault - Illustrates disciplinary power through surveillance as the panopticon, prisoners dont know if guards are watching them, Foucault theory is that constant external monitoring through surveillance would be internalised and change peoples behaviour
4) Justice needs to be more individualised. Any sentencing should be customised to each individual and recognise the particular circumstances - such as inadequate welfare support or mental illness - which make individuals vulnerable to causing harm EVA - Explains contemporary developments e.g. surveillance and increased localism Doesn’t recognise that decentralised and more informal arrangements for crime control are likely to benefit the well organised and articulate groups - Middle class.
Biological/Psychological Theories
Biological theories suggest that criminals are genetically predisposed to commit crimes, known as ‘born criminal’
Lombroso - First to link crime to biology, argued that criminals were primitive throwbacks and identified certain genetic traits often found in criminals, such as large jaws, high cheekbones, large ears, extra nipples, fingers and toes and insensitivity to pain
Certain genes have also been linked to aggressive behaviour, studies have found a connection between the MAOA gene and increased aggression in individuals
Some psychologists believe that certain personality traits make people more likely to commit crimes, for example extroverts may break the law since they seek excitement and harder to teach norms and values
Bowlby - argues early socialisation is key. if a child lacks motherly love especially in the first three years they might develop a psychopathic personality. Studies show that children deprived of a maternal figure are more likely to act impulsively and show little remorse
EVA - Sociologists reject biological and psychological explanations of crime because they ignore the social and cultural factors that define crime and deviance. Argue its hard to believe people have a genetic or psychological tendency to break rules as these rules change over time and vary across culture
Sociologists also say that crime is not determined by genes or personality but follows social patterns related to age, class, gender and ethnicity. Many biological and psychological theories are based on unrepresentative samples of criminals and lack valid or reliable evidence
Measuring Crime, Police and victim surveys
- Police recorded Crime - crimes detected or reported to the police and recorded by them, form the main basis for OCS
Strengths - Useful for understanding crime patterns and allows comparisons, clear-up rate reveals police efficiency and also where to concentrate police, Reveals police assumptions and stereotyping as the stats are in part generated by the activities of the police themselves.
Weakness - Dark figure of crime, Not all crimes are reported, Not all crime is recorded 57% of crime reported fail to make it into OCS, Role of Courts, Role of government - Victim Surveys -
Strengths - overcomes the fact that a significant proportion of offences are never reported to or recorded by the police, Gives a picture of the extent and patterns of victimisation and provides insights into the victims of crime that police recorded crime can’t.
Weakness - exaggeration and lying, Relies on victim’s memories which can be faulty or biased, repressed memories, Victim surveys omit a range of crimes, such as fraud or corporate crime, and any crime where the victim is unaware of or unable to report a crime e.g. may not realised they’ve been sold dangerous products - Self-report studies -
Strengths - provide characteristics of offenders, Victimless crimes can be reported, Patterns of offending
Weakness - Exaggeration or lying, Participation in survey is going to be low, Offenders may not own up to all offences
Ethnicity - Statistics valid
Left realists, Lea and Young - accept that black crime is higher for some offences than white, They argue this is result of marginality, relative deprivation, and membership of subcultures.
Black communities are more likely to suffer from poverty and social exclusion which could explain higher levels of robbery.
Waddington - used non participant observation, OS and interviews with police officers. - Found that although police stop a high number of young people from ethnic minorities, they also stop a high number white young people. Furthermore these numbers are in direct proportion to their presence in the central city and their likelihood to be out at night, concludes that police stop and searches reflect the composition of the street rather than any ethic bias
Murray - suggests there is reason to blame black families for a large proportion of crimes committed, claiming they formed part of an underclass who had different norms and values.
Ethnicity Theories explanation
Marxism - selective law enforcement, disproportionally prosecuting w/c or Ethnic minorities
New Criminology - media courts and police create a moral panic about black mugger, focussing on muggers during a politically and economically charged time reinforced ruling class hegemony
Labelling Theory - Ethnic minorities are stereotyped and labelled as criminal leading to a self fulfilling prophecy and becoming folk devil
Left realism - Ethnic minorities are marginalised and so are frustrated and are powerless to use political power so use violence
Right realism - Poor socialisation, Murray claims that black people are a large part of the underclass that he says fail to socialise their children properly, Murray also argues that Black ethnic minorities have less IQ so are more likely to commit crime
Subcultural theories - Cohen - Ethnic minorities experience status frustration due to institutional racism blocking avenues of success - Delinquent subcultures
