Crime and Deviance - SOCIOLOGICAL EXPLANAITIONS Flashcards
FUNC; what is meant by boundaries/ social cohesion?
Crime reminds people of consequences/ everyone comes together as a community after a crime, in shared outrage
FUNC; what is meant by crime acts as a safety valve?
it releases pressure of society; someone may go and see a prostitute to fulfil their sexual desires instead of committing rape (a more harmful crime)
FUNC; who came up with the subculture theory? what does it mean?
Cohen; working class youth reject mainstream norms and values and replace them with deviant ones as a way to gain status alternatively. Their way of striking back at inequality
FUNC; who theorised ‘strain theory’? what does it mean?
Merton; society sets goals yet if people can not achieve them, then people will seek these through illegal means. ‘anomie’
Give two criticisms of the functionalist theories
Not always functional since they they have many harmful consequences.
(Merton) Ignores those who can not achieve the goals yet still do not commit crime to achieve them.
INT; who is usually labelled as the ‘folk devils’?
Young, black, working-class males
INT; how does crime happen?
Powerful decide who is seen as the ‘folk devils’, constant labelling leads to their self-fulfilling prophecy
Give criticism of the interactionist theory.
Someone is not labelled as something if they have not committed the crime - the crime comes before the label
FEM; how do they explain crime?
Men are given much more freedom than women so they are freer to commit crime than women (Heidensohn)
FEM; why are women prosecuted much less than men?
Chivalry Thesis - seen as the weaker sex so treated less harshly in the CJS
Give a criticism of the feminist approach.
They are too focused on gender instead of other socio-economic factors
MARX; how do they explain crime?
Unequal Capitalist society, laws implemented are made to benefit the rich despite the illusion that it benefits the whole population
MARX; what is the difference between different classes in the CJS?
They are treated differently
Give a criticism of the Marxist approach.
They focus too much on class rather than on other socio-economic factors
NR; who are to blame for crime? which person says this?
single-parent families; Murray
