Crime and Deviance - Social Distribution of crime; Class Flashcards
Types of crime
White collar -
Also known as occupational crime. This is crime that is committed by middle class individuals who abuse their work positions for personal gain.
Corporate -
Also known as organizational crime. These (according to Slapper and Tombs, 1999) are offences committed by large companies which benefit the organisation rather than the individual.
Examples of white collar crime
- Bribery
- Corruption in government or business
- Fiddling expenses
- Fraud
- Embezzlement
Croall (2001) cites cases of crimes against the NHS committed by doctors, dentists or pharmacists who falsify prescriptions and patient records to claim millions of pounds more than what they are entitled to. One doctor made £700,000 over 5 years doing this
Sutherland’s Differential Association Theory
If you associate (mix with) people who accept illegality, you are more likely to accept / condone / engage in it yourself. This is true for all classes.
Different theories and working class crime
Explanations -
- Control theory (Hirschi) - w/c have fewer bonds and are less integrated (work, social etc)
- Strain theory (Merton) - W/C are blocked from legitimate opportunities to complete goals
- Subcultural theories - W/C experience status frustration / focal concerns / subcultures
- Marxism - criminogenic capitalism, selective law enforcement and ideological law
- Labelling theory - typification of areas and criminals
- Left Realism - Lea and Young; relative deprivation, marginalisation and subcultures
- Right Realism - Murray; rational choice theory, underclass, welfare dependency
Statistics of working class crime
The w/c are victims of crime in numbers we perhaps don’t expect. They are viewed as the criminals but crime is intra-class - it’s not w/c criminals making m/c victims!
Slapper and Tombs - 6 types of corporate crime
1) Paperwork and non-compliance - defective device to cheat emissions tests
2) Environmental (green) crime - Illegal dumping of untreated waste/sewage into rivers
3) Manufacturing offences - Knock off goods, safety checks not completed (grenfell!) thalidomide - ignore unsafe products
4) Labour law violations - Neglect h&s, ignore industrial diseases
5) Unfair trade practices - False advertising, price fixing, supermarkets fixing prices which costs consumers
6) Financial offences - tax evasion
Why are working class criminals more likely to be convicted?
- Wealthier and high status offenders are less likely to fit the stereotype of the type of criminal who is seen as posing a significant threat to society. Courts are less likely to treat them as a dangerous offender and many cases involving wealthier offenders do not, in any event, lead to prosecution. They tend to be dealt with by authorities such as the Inland Revenue rather than the police.
- These other organisations operate in different ways to the police often trying to reach agreement rather than resorting immediately prosecution.
- In addition, wealthier and high status offenders are more likely to be able to afford highly skilled legal representation to defend themselves against accusations in order to seek the minimum possible sentence.
Consensus theories, social class and crime
- General accept that crime rates are higher among the lower social classes and the two main theories used to explain why are strain theory and status frustration
- Merton argued that crime was higher among the working classes as they had fewer opportunities to achieve material success through legitimate means and were thus more likely to adopt innovative cultural responses in order to achieve material success through criminal means, through burglary or drug dealing etc
- Albert Cohen put more emphasis on cultural factors (values and status) rather than material factors in explaining working class crime - Cohen argued that working class boys trove to emulate middle class values and aspirations, but lacked the means to achieve success, and this led to status frustration, a sense of personal failure and inadequacy
- In Cohen’s view, they resolved their frustration by rejecting socially acceptable values and patterns of acceptable behaviour - because there were several boys going through the same experiences, they end up banding together and forming delinquent subcultures
Interactionism, social class and crime
- Cicourel argued that the meanings held by police officers and juvenile officers that explained why most delinquents come from working class backgrounds - when middle class delinquents are arrested they are less likely to be charged with the offence if they do not fit the typical delinquent image
- Middle class parents are more able to present themselves as respectable and reasonable people from a nice neighbourhood and cooperate fully with juvenile officers, assuring them that their child is truly remorseful - as a result, middle cass delinquents are more likely to be defined by as ill rather than criminal as having accidentally strayed from the path of righteousness just the once and having a real chance at reform
Marxism, social class and crime
- Marxists argue that while W/C crime does exist, it is a rational response to criminogenic capitalism - moreover, all classes commit crime, and the crimes of the elite are more harmful than street crime, but less likely to be punished
- Gordon said that capitalist societies are dog eat dog, in which each individual and company is encouraged to look after themselves before the interests of their community and before the protection of the environment; capitalism recommends engagement in self-interested pursuit of profit and we learn it is acceptable to harm others and the environment in the process
- The crimes of the elite are more costly than street crime - Marxists argue that although they are hidden from view, the crimes of the elite exert a greater economic toll on society than the crimes of ordinary people - Snider (1993) points out the cost of white collar and corporate crime to the economy far outweighs the cost of street crime by ‘typical’ criminals
Right realism, social class and crime
- Disagree with Marxists - point to the underclass as being responsible for disproportionate amounts of societal crimes
- Murray - argued that changes to family structure was responsible for much of the increase in crime in the 1970s and 1980s; he largely attributed the growth of crime to a growing underclass of new rabble defined by their deviant behaviour and fail to socialise their children properly and these children fail to learn self-control and also fail to learn the difference between right and wrong
Left realism, social class and crime
- Lea and Young conclude that they can explain this using the concepts of relative deprivation, marginalisation and subculture
- Relative deprivation - refers to how someone feels in relation to others, or compared with their own expectations - although people are better off today, they have a greater feeling of relative deprivation because of the media and advertising have raised people’s expectations of material possessions; we are wealthier but feel poorer, and there is more pressure to get more stuff to keep up with everyone else which generates historically high crime rates
- Marginalisation - where people lack the power and resources to fully participate in society; marginalised groups lack both clear goals and organisations to represent their interests and unemployed youth in particular are marginalised and so feel frustrated and show resentment; having no access to legitimate political means to pursue their goals, frustration can become expressed through violence
- Subculture - a group’s collective response to the situation of relative deprivation, drawing upon Cohen’s theory of status frustration; there are many different subcultural adaptations to blocked opportunities and not all cause crime, but those subcultures which still subscribe to the mainstream values of material wealth but lack legitimate opportunities to achieve those goals
De-labelling - Nelken
Businesses and working class individuals are not likely to be labelled due to the nature of their crimes being middle class - they have the power to hide crimes and restore reputations, and so charges are more likely to be dropped, leading to less recording of middle class crime even if the distribution of crime is more even.
