Crime and deviance Flashcards
What does Merton say about the causes of crime?
conformity, innovation, retreatism, rebellion and ritualism.
Functionalists; Anomie and The American Dream and Strain theory.
- Merton argues that individuals commit crime as a result of not being able to achieve the idealistic standards that they have been socialised to strive to achieve (eg the American Dream - good job, nice house etc).
- Merton suggests that individuals accept these socially accepted goals but lack the means to attain them and so experience a strain between them.
- In the bid to still attain these goals, individuals attempt to bridge the gap between their goals and material/cultural deprivation by resorting to any means, including criminal activities to achieve material success.
- During this process, anomie develops (the breakdown of norms) - and behaviour is no longer regulated by moral and social values but rather material desires.
- So when anomie develops high rates of crime and delinquency are likely.
- People respond to this realisation of lacking means through: conformity (just getting on with it, pursuing the goal through education), innovation (where ppl turn to deviant means to attain these goals), retreatism (drop outs from society, they become drug addicts to cope), rebellion(when individuals reject the social goals and create their own) and ritualism (where individuals have no innovative skills to attain these goals via education, they have to work a low paying job).
CRITICISMS OF MERTON;
- Merton doesn’t acknowledge white-collar/corporate crimes, committed by middle-class individuals and large organisations who do not experience poverty/material deprivation.
- Juvenile delinquency such as vandalism isn’t motivated by the goal of achieving material success.
What does Becker say about the causes of crime?
Interactionist; crime is due to labelling - SFP - master status (keywords, master status, SFP, labelling, deviant career).
- Becker argues crime is a by-product of labelling.
- He suggests that deviance is socially constructed and an act is considered deviant depending on: C.A.S.T.L.E (class, age, sex, time, location, ethnicity).
- And so if an act is considered deviant, the individual is negatively labelled.
- This label in turns results in people viewing the individual negatively which could affect their social status (eg within jobs and families, rejection) - This new status with time eventually becomes their master status and overrides their previous one.
- And so the self fulfilling manifests itself eventually as the individual will choose to resort to criminal and are deviant activities.
- They do this by acclimatising to a deviant sub-culture that accepts them after wider society has rejected them.
- Now a deviant career has been developed.
CRITICISMS
- Does not explain why individuals deviate in the first place
- Legitimises criminals and sees them as victims of labelling rather than perpetrators of crime.
What is meant by crime and deviance?
Crime is an illegal act which is punishable by law, eg theft.
Deviance is an act which goes against societies norms but may not be illegal - it is subjective to C.A.S.T.L.E - link to Becker.
(eg having many tattoos may be deviant in a country but not in another, though this is still legal).
Explain why deviance is socially constructed, 3 marks.
CASTLE - check paper
Deviance can be seen as socially constructed as it can be subjective to a particular location.
Social construction refers to the creation unwritten rules, norms and values society has created through a consensus.
Deviance can be seen as socially constructed as in varying locations, an act such as having extreme tattoos may be acceptable in some cultures such as North America, while in conservative countries such as Saudi Arabia, this act would be seen as deviant and unacceptable.
So, in different societies, an act may be seen as deviant while in others it may not be.
Which is why deviance can be perceived as socially construction.
Class
Age
Sex
Time
Location
Ethnicity
What is meant by social order?
The stable and predictable patterns of behaviour and interactions within a society which are maintained through informal and formal rules.
What is meant by formal and informal control? Who are the agents of formal and informal control?
Give an example of formal and informal control (reference unwritten rules and sanctions)
Formal control is the maintenance of stable, predictable and acceptable social interactions based on laws and written rules.
Agents of formal social control include
- House of Parliament (the legislature, those that make the laws)
- The Judiciary (those that deal with alleged offenders and sentence them)
- Magistrates (those that hear cases and deal regarding criminal offences)
- The police
- Prison service - deterrence etc
- Probation service - supervises offenders who have been released into the community.
Informal social control - the maintenance of stable, predictable and acceptable social interactions based on unwritten rules and processes.
- These processes include approval or disapproval from others by agencies of informal social control.
Agencies of informal social control:
- Family members
- Colleagues
- Friends
HOW?
- Positive sanctions reward individuals who comply with unwritten rules
- Negative sanctions punish those who do not conform.
- Also link to peer pressure.
What does Durkheim say about the functions of crime?
Functionalist; crime is positive for society due to its four functions
1) Boundary maintenance (crime allows people to distinguish right from wrong).
2) Changing society (society can revolutionise what they believe may be wrong to right through crime, eg homosexuality, crime’s role is to perfect society, not to dent it).
3) Acts as a warning device and deterrence (warns individuals to not commit crime due to punishment of minor crimes; deters people from committing more crime through serious punishments of minor crimes people wouldn’t want to commit murder)
4) Provides jobs (crime allows for the CJS to function, without the CJS there would be no jobs for probation officers, police officers etc - this reduces the levels of homelessness and economic strain in UK society)
- Crime provides jobs
- Serves as a warning service and deterrence
- Crime allows for boundary maintenance
- Crime can change society
CRITICISM
- Durkheim doesn’t specify how serious the crime must be.
What does Heindensohn say about the functions of crime? ref control theory + female conformity - to control women link to unwritten rules
Feminist; crime is NEGATIVE for society as it helps to maintain patriarchy through control theory.
- The reason as to why women statistically have a lower rate of officially record crime than men is because of the control theory.
- The control theory emphasises on the fact that society is a comprise of two spheres; the public sphere designated for men, and the private/home sphere, designated for men.
- Girls are socialised to prefer to stay at home (bedroom culture) while boys are expected to go out with the ‘lads’ - ‘lad culture’.
- Therefore H argues that women are controlled by unwritten rules of society which make it harder for them to commit crime eg the expectations to get married, carrying out expressive roles etc - these all occur in the private/home sphere, and here their time is taken up.
- Additionally, women are prevented from committing crime due to the fear, eg fear of going out after dark due to sexual harassment (link to Sarah Everard case).
- This fear controls them in public setting and deters them from committing crime.
CRITICISMS
- Many women can still commit crimes from home, eg fraud.
What does Albert Cohen say about delinquent subcultures and crime?
Functionalist; juvenile delinquency is carried out by groups rather than individuals.
- Albert Cohen studies juvenile delinquency among working-class boys in the USA (not representative, only wc, boys, usa)
- He argued that their delinquency evolved due to the educational system - these WC boys cannot compete with their MC counterparts academically to gain status and qualifications through education (due to material/cultural deprivation)
- And so experience status frustration when they attempt to meet the MC expectations at school.
- So in the bid to attack societal MC pressures these WC boys develop delinquent subcultures which enable them to gain status within their group and ‘get back’ at the educational system who has branded and labelled them as failures.
CRITICISMS
- Cohen’s work shows MC bias as it assumes that all WC delinquents start out by accepting MC aspirations such as educational success - this is not the case.
What does Carlen say about the cause of increasing involvement of women in crime?
Feminist; women commit crimes due to broken deals eg gender and class deal.
How does social class affect criminal and deviant behaviour?
Official statistics have shown that WC people are overrepresented in prisons.
REASONS WHY
- FUNC Merton; anomie and strain theory
- FUNC Cohen: status frustration - link to Juvenile delinquency.
- MARXIST Chambliss; WC people are overrepresented due to the influence of the Bourgeoisie in society. Crime is a ploy socially constructed by the B in order to divert the attention of society from their crimes and refocus it on the crime of that of the proletariat/working class. The Bourgeoisie have created a capitalist society that disadvantages the proletariat to an extent where they have to commit crimes in order to survive. (link to working conditions, low pay, link to bias and the fact that majority of the CJS is made up of MC individuals).
Capitalist society = criminogenic and crime in cap. society is inevitable.
ALL LINK TO material deprivation etc.
How does ethnicity affect criminal and deviant behaviour?
Statistics show that ethnic minority groups/members of the BAME community are over-represented in prisons.
WHY?
- Institutional racism + racial discrimination within CJS - CJS made up of mainly white MC - more white police means more stop and search for BAME.
- Labelling - by society causes retreat from society or to rebel against society through crime.
- Poverty and material deprivation ^^ due to labelling, BAME = less employed so have more material deprivation, resulting in more crime.
STAT; Black people in England and Wales was 25 searches per 1,000 people, compared with the stop and search rate for white people of 6 per 1000 people.
How does gender affect criminal and deviant behaviour?
RISING RATES IN CRIMES COMMITED BY WOMEN
Carlen suggests that there is an increase in the rate at which women commit crime due to 2 deals being broken; class deal and gender deal. Women are offered material rewards for working such as a wages, and are awarded emotional awards from conforming to social expectations by marrying a breadwinner husband. When these deals are broken and rewards aren’t granted women resort to crime.
(Link to women being victims of patriarchal society designed solely to benefit men).
WHY ARE THESE CRIMES NOT RECORDED/UNDER-RECORDED?
Crime for women may be lower than that of men due the Chivalry Thesis. Pollack suggests that women are treated leniently by male police officers due to patriarchal socialisation- men tend to pity women when they are caught committing crimes rather than punish them.
How does media affect criminal and deviant behaviour in relation to age?
Young individuals are more likely to commit crimes due to media influence. Stan Cohen suggests the media amplifies crime, and so young people who are the primary consumers of social media simultaneously consume negative influences that may encourage them to commit crimes to seek popularity and succumb to peer pressure.
Identify and explain what is meant by a white collar crime.
- A white collar crime is a crime committed by people in relatively high-status positions such as accountants and lawyers.
- White collar crimes include fraud and tax evasion
- These crimes often occur within the work spaces of individuals and so often go undiscovered, unreported and unrecorded by the police (within the dark figure)
- And even if they were, these high status individuals would have the money to be able to contract competent lawyers to fight for them in court.
