Crime and Deviance Sociologists and Statistics Flashcards

Question

Secondary Deviance - Becker and Lemert

Answer 1

This societal reaction and the subsequent labelling of the person as a criminal, deviant, etc is known as ‘secondary deviance’. Both Becker and Lemert argue that secondary deviance can have negative consequences in that being caught and publicly labelled as a criminal can involve being stigmatized, shunned and excluded from normal society.

Answer 2

Triplett (2000) notes an increasing tendency to see young offenders as evil and to be less tolerant of minor deviance such as truancy.

Answer 3

Braithwaite (1989) suggests there are two types of shaming available to the criminal justice system: > Disintegrative shaming > Reintegrative shaming Braithwaite argues that the concept of reintegrative shaming avoids stigmatizing or negatively labelling the offender as ‘evil’ or ‘bad’ while at the same time making them aware of the negative impact of their actions upon others.

Answer 4

Ackers argues that labelling theory puts too much emphasis on societal reaction – he argues that the act is always more important than the reaction to it, e.g. rape, murder and child abuse are always deviant. However, Plummer, in defence of labelling theory, points out that labelling theory’s emphasis on societal reaction is valuable because many activities are defined as deviant or non-deviant depending on the audience and/or the social context in which it occurs, e.g. soft drug use is acceptable to many younger people but is deemed deviant by the establishment.

Answer 5

Howard Becker argues that there is no such thing as a deviant act – no act is intrinsically criminal or deviant in itself, in all situations and at all times. Instead, it only defined as such when others label it as ‘wrong’. In other words, it is not the nature of the act that makes it deviant, but society’s reaction to it. As Webb notes, deviance is in the eye of the beholder.

Answer 6

Becker argues that the social construction of deviance requires two activities. One group –which normally lacks power – acts in a particular way, and another group - with more power - responds negatively to it and defines it as criminal. For Becker, therefore, a deviant is simply someone to whom a negative label has been successfully applied and deviant behaviour is simply behaviour that people with more power (e.g. parents, teachers, police officers etc) so label.

Answer 7

Becker is interested in why and how rules get made because it is the breaking of those rules that creates the potential for deviance. In this sense, interactionism is interested in how social controls such as laws can create the potential for deviance. Becker rejects the functionalist idea that rules and laws are the product of value consensus or universal agreement. Instead he notes that powerful groups create rules or laws and label those who fail to conform to these social controls as criminals or outlaws/outsiders.

Answer 8

Becker notes that in Western societies, those with the power to label others as deviant are often ‘moral entrepreneurs’ – religious leaders, politicians, editors and journalists –who lead campaigns to change the law and label particular types of behaviour as criminal or deviant.

Answer 9

Becker notes that agents of social control, particularly the police and the judiciary work on behalf of powerful groups to label and therefore define the behaviour of less powerful groups as problematical. They do this by paying these groups disproportionate negative attention in terms of stop and search, arrest, prosecution and giving them custodial sentences etc.

Answer 10

The Right Realist, Charles Murray suggests that both in the USA and UK, there exists a lower-class subculture or underclass below the ‘respectable’ working-class, which subscribes to deviant and criminal values rather than mainstream values. He claims that parents in this underclass transmit this deficient culture to their children via socialization. He suggests that this criminal underclass is growing as a result of welfare dependency.

Answer 11

Bennett, Dilulio and Walters (1995) argue the young criminal underclass exists as a result of ‘growing up surrounded by deviant, delinquent, and criminal adults in a practically perfect criminogenic environment that is, one that seems almost consciously designed to produce vicious, predatory unrepentant street criminals’.

Answer 12

Individuals have free will and the power to reason and thus choose their own actions. Clarke (1980) argues that an individual’s decision to commit crime is a choice based on a rational calculation of the likely consequences of their actions. If the perceived rewards of crime outweigh the perceived costs of crime, or if the rewards of crime appear to be greater than those of non-criminal action, then people are more likely to choose to offend.

Answer 13

In a similar analysis, Felson (1998) notes that if community controls (e.g. from family, neighbours, the community etc) are strong, this increases both the risk of being caught and punished, and deters crime. However, all too often, especially in inner city areas, community controls are weak, and the risk of being caught and punished is low.

Answer 14

Wilson stresses the certainty of capture which he believes will result in the risks of being caught outweighing the benefits of crime. He particularly recommends ‘zero tolerance’ policing, i.e. the police should keep the streets clear of all deviant elements especially those crimes which threaten to undermine or threaten the sense of community in neighbourhoods such as prostitution, begging, drug-dealing and drunkenness. He believes that the streets should be flooded with police in order to both deter crime and so that law-abiding citizens can feel safe. This policy proved to be very successful in New York in the 1990s.

Answer 15

Wilson’s ‘broken windows’ theory argues that if signs of disorder and lack of concern for others are allowed to develop then crime rates rapidly increase. He suggests it is essential to maintain the orderly character of neighbourhoods to prevent crime taking hold. Any sign of deterioration such as graffiti or broken windows must be dealt with immediately because failure to deal with these problems sends out a clear signal to criminals and deviants that no one cares which encourages the escalation of crime.

Answer 16

Rex and Tomlinson point out that survey evidence suggests that the poor subscribe to the same sorts of values as everybody else and that their poverty is often caused by factors beyond their control, e.g. economic recession, globalisation, government policies etc.

Answer 17

The rich live in ‘gated communities’ guarded by technology and private security forces. This has the effect of displacing crime to poorer less protected areas such as council estates and inner cities.

Answer 18

With no other outlets for their anger and frustration at being excluded from the lifestyles they aspire to, they are more likely to involve themselves in various forms of what Lyng calls 'edgework'. This involves all manner of thrill-seeking and risk-taking behaviour, not necessarily criminal or deviant, but the pursuit of peril may include exploring the boundaries between legal and criminal behaviour, potentially leading to crime and violence, anti-social behaviour, rioting, and self-destructive confrontations with the law,

Answer 19

Runciman’s (1966) concept of relative deprivation to explain crime. This refers to how someone feels in relation to others, or compared with their own expectations. The concept of relative deprivation helps to explain the apparent paradox of increasing crime in the context of an increasingly wealthy society. Although people are better off today, they have a greater feeling of relative deprivation because of the media and advertising have raised everyone’s expectations for material possessions.

Answer 20

Sutherland defines white collar crime as ‘crime committed by a person of respectability and high social status’ in the course of their job, i.e. managers, professionals such as solicitors, accountants and doctors, directors of companies etc.

Answer 21

Croall notes that such crime is normally carried out whilst employed in a particular role and often involves the abuse of authority, position and trust in order to carry out and conceal the crime. She lists fraud, accounting offences, tax evasion, insider dealing and computer crime as typical white collar crimes.

Answer 22

Croall notes that companies also commit crimes. In other words, a board of directors or a team of managers actively choose to break the law in order to financially benefit the company, i.e. by increasing their profits or the value of shares in the company.

Answer 23

Stephen Box points out when a company kills or harms consumers or customers, the law often does not define the action as a criminal offence. Rather it is defined as a lesser civil offence.

Answer 24

Between 1965 and 1995 in the UK, 25,000 people were killed at work. 70% of these deaths were due to employer’s negligent violation of health and safety laws. However, it is rare that employers are subject to criminal prosecution because the Health and Safety Executive, a civil agency, lacks the power to impose the criminal sanctions that might be imposed on an individual killer.

Answer 25

Croall argues that despite the high economic and personal costs of white collar and corporate crime, it is not regarded as a serious problem by the general public for a number of reasons.

Answer 26

Reiner notes that in the 21st century money has become the main source of status. Unfortunately this aspiration is likely to lead to anomie because it cannot be satisfied – as Reiner notes ‘there is no intrinsic end-point to the pursuit of monetary success –it is always possible to chase more’. He notes that financial success breeds desire for more money rather than job satisfaction. Reiner argues that corporate and white-collar crimes committed by the rich and powerful are therefore caused by the anomic pressures that result from a society that values monetary success so highly.

Answer 27

Miller suggested that working-class boys were socialised into a number of distinct values that together meant they were more likely than others to engage in delinquent or deviant behaviour. Miller described these values as "focal concerns". Concerns include: > Excitement > Toughness > Smartness > Trouble > Autonomy > Fate

Answer 28

According to Frances Heidensohn, girls are controlled by fathers and other relatives until they are married when they are controlled by their husbands. The fact that boys and young men spend more time away from older or otherwise authoritative figures could account for their higher levels of criminality, especially anti-social behaviour.

Answer 29

Heidensohn suggests that domestic violence is just one criminal way men express control in in private – it also happens in public through ‘harassment’ on the streets.

Answer 30

Functionalist Talcott Parsons traces differences in crime and deviance to the gender roles in the traditional nuclear family. While men take the instrumental role, preformed largely outside the home, women perform the expressive role in the home where they take main responsibility for socializing children. Whilst this gives girls access to a role model it tends to mean that boys reject feminine models of behaviour that express tenderness or emotion. Instead boys tend to distance themselves by engaging in “Compensatory Compulsory Masculinity” through anti social and deviant behaviour.

Answer 31

Cohen suggests that the lack of a role model means that boys turn to street gangs as a source of male identity, where status is earned through toughness and aggression.

Answer 32

Heidonsohn & Carlen back this theory up by suggesting that females have more to lose if they turn to crime. Their socialisation means that their central role as ‘Guardians of Domestic Morality’ carries with it an expectation to set a good example and to not take risks.

Answer 33

Anderson (1976) suggests that the Criminal Justice System is ‘Paternalistic’ and as such has a stereotypical view of females as helpless and naïve. As such the CJS is more likely to treat females more leniently than men and let them off for offences.

Answer 34

Women are consistently treated more leniently by the law (e.g.first offenders about half as likely to be given a sentence of immediate imprisonment as their male counterparts). for example according to the ministry of Justice (2009) 49% of women recorded as offending received a caution where as for men it was only 30%. Hood (1992) study over 3000 defendants and fund that women were 1/3 less likely to be jailed for a similar offence to a man.

Answer 35

Pollak suggest that men are raised to be respectful and courteous to women so are more likely to treat them with leniency, however women are also much more subversive due to biology and therefore are better at hiding their crimes.

Answer 36

Flood and Page found that women who admitted to their crime and showed remorse were less likely to be charged then men in the same situation.

Answer 37

Campbell conducted a self study report and found that women were more likely to be cautioned then charged and that the ratio of male to female juvenile offending was more likely 1.33 boys: 1 girl then the official figure of 1 girl for every: 8.95 boys.

Answer 38

Adler (1975): argues that as changes in the structure of society have led to changes in women’s offending behaviour. As patriarchal controls weaken and opportunities in work and education have become more equal, women have started to adopt traditionally male behaviours in both legitimate and illegitimate activity. As a result women are no longer just committing traditionally female crimes such as prostitution and shop lifting but also more typically ‘male’ crimes such as violence and white collar crimes.

Answer 39

Denscombe (2001): uses the phrase ‘Ladette’ to describe females who are taking on more typical male characteristics and as a result are more likely to take risks, disrespect authority and engage in drinking and violence. ‘Ladette Culture’ has become somewhat of a moral panic lately.

Answer 40

> 60% of whites were found guilty compared with 52% of blacks and 44% of Asians > 13.2% of the UK prison population is black compared with their being 2.8% of the over 15 population. Asian and mixed-race people are also over- represented in the prison population; yet white people who represent 88.3% of the population only make up 73.8% of the prison population

Answer 41

Reiner (2000): Canteen culture amongst the police, including: suspicion, macho values and racism, which encourages racist stereotypes and a mistrust of those from non-white backgrounds.

Answer 42

Bowling and Phillips (2002): Higher levels of robbery among black people could be the product of labelling that arises from the use of regular stop and search procedures, which in turn leads to the self fulfilling prophecy.

Answer 43

Policing The Crisis (Hall et al, 1978) – Hall examined the moral panic over “mugging” in the early 1970s, using Marxist insights. Selective and stereotypical reporting represented young black men as potential muggers and given the role of folk devils. In fact, mugging (not an official category of crime in any case) was not increasing dramatically. Hall explained the moral panic in terms of a crisis of British capitalism: the state deflected attention on to a small group who could be scapegoated and on whom the state could be portrayed as cracking down firmly, using new repressive policing which would be useful in tackling future unrest. Young blacks were suitable for this role because of their visibility and powerlessness in the sense of lacking organizations or representatives to speak on their behalf.

Answer 44

Sharp and Budd (2005): Black offenders were most likely to have contact with the criminal justice system in their lifetime and were more likely to have been arrested, been to court and convicted. This is despite their lower levels of offending compared to white people generally and white youths in particular. 2014, the data showed 65 Black, 23 Asian, 28 mixed race individuals being stopped and searched per every thousand in the population, compared with 15 white individuals per every thousand.

Answer 45

Lea and Young (1984): High levels of crime really do exist in inner city areas where there are often high numbers of members of ethnic minorities, and draw attention to the fact that those who live here are the main victims of crime as well.

Answer 46

Subcultural responses include the hustling subculture described by Pryce in his ethnographic study of St Paul’s in Bristol, with young blacks involved in petty street crime, drug dealing and prostitution, getting by from day to day.

Answer 47

Broken Window thesis Shaw and McKay suggest that inner city areas are transient communities that don't develop social solidarity and where new migrants don't put down roots. It is therefore likely that such communities are less likely to self-regulate than suburban or rural communities, and are therefore more likely to have broken windows.

Answer 48

The political nature of black crime (Gilroy) – Gilroy, a Neo-Marxist, agrees that young blacks are targeted by the media and the police, but argues that black crime is different in that it is a conscious continuation of anti-colonial struggles in the West Indies, just in a new context. It is therefore black crime is political and potentially revolutionary, a political response to inequality and discrimination.

Answer 49

David Held et al. (1999) defines globalisation as: The widening, deepening and speeding up of worldwide interconnectedness in all aspects of life, from the cultural to the criminal, the financial to the spiritual.

Answer 50

Manual Castells argues that there is now a global criminal economy worth over 1 trillion per annum and this takes a number of forms. > Drugs trade > People smuggling > Trafficking cultural artefacts and endangered species

Answer 51

Ian Taylor (1997) writing from a socialist perspective, argues that globalisation has led to changes in the patterns and extent of crimes. By giving free reign to market forces globalisation has created greater inequality and rising crime rates. He also states that globalisation has led to the creation of crime at both ends of the spectrum, from the social elite and transnational corporations to the poverty stricken.

Answer 52

Ulrich Beck - argued that developments in the fields of science and technology have themselves brought about problems such as global warming and increases in terrorism. For example, scientists appear to contradict one another’s findings, which in itself causes the general public to question science itself and he suggested that a loss of respect for experts generally creates this uncertainty. In turn, this has led what Beck has led to the emergence of a ‘risk society’, where we are now faced with issues that would have not faced society before. This is because a vast amount of the risk we face is now invisible and universal. And therefore they unescapable, even the rich can’t escape. This is in interesting concept especially when considering crime and globalisation.

Answer 53

1.Immediacy 2.Dramatization – action and excitement 3.Personalisation – human interest stories 4.Higher status persons and celebrities 5.Simplification – eliminating shades of grey 6.Novelty or unexpectedness – a new angle 7.Risk – victim-centred stories about vulnerability and fear 8.Violence – especially visible and spectacular acts

Answer 54

Ericson et al (1991) Toronto’s press – 45-71% of quality press and radio news was about various forms of deviance.

Answer 55

Williams and Dickinson (1993) British newspapers devote 30% of their news space to crime.

Answer 56

Fictional representations of crime, criminals and victims follow what Surette (1998) calls the ‘law of opposites’ – they are opposite to the official statistics – and strikingly similar to news coverage. Property crime is under-represented- while violence, drugs and sex crimes are over represented. Fictional cops usually get their man. Fictional sex crimes are usually perpetrated by psychopathic strangers, not acquaintances. While real life homicides mainly result from brawls and domestic disputes, fictional ones are the product of greed and calculation. Fictional villains tend to be higher status, middle aged white males.

Answer 57

Schlesinger and Tumber (1994) found that in the 60’s the focus was on murders and petty crimes, by the 1990’s reporting included more on drugs, child abuse, terrorism, football hooliganism and mugging. The media has also been preoccupied with sex crimes.

Answer 58

Chris Greer (2005): “All media tend to exaggerate the extent of violent crime.” Most crime is fairly routine, trivial and non-dramatic. However, TV programmes like Crimewatch often pick up on the more serious and violent offences with reconstructions giving quite frightening, dramatized insights into the crimes committed. This focus on the exceptional and the dramatic is a routine feature of crime dramas on TV or film, as well as of news reports, and gives a false and misleading impression of the real extent of such crimes.

Answer 59

Williams and Dickinson found 65% of crime stories in ten national newspapers were about violence. In the same year (1989) the British Crime Survey reported only 6% of crimes involved violence.

Answer 60

Baudrillard – Media creates reality – people have no understanding of crime only the representations of crime they experience through the mass media.

Answer 61

“any action that harms the physical environment and any creatures that live within it, even if no law has technically been broken."

Answer 62

Ecocentric: Damage to the environment is damage to the other species as well putting the human race at risk in the future. Anthropocentric: Humans have the right to exploit the environment and other species for their own benefit.

Answer 63

Primary – Harm inflicted on the environment. Secondary - Crime that grows out of the flouting of rules.

Answer 64

Secondary green crime: “symbiotic green crime is crime that grows out of the flouting of rules that seek to regulate environmental disasters” (Carrabine et al. 2004).

Answer 65

Wolf states that it is those in the developing world, the poor and ethnic minorities that are most likely to face the effects of environmental crime. This is due to their inability to move away from areas where these crimes take place. For example, the people of Bhopal in India who were the victims of the Union Carbide gas leak in December 1984. Over 2,000 died immediately due to the leak but it is estimated that over 8,000 have died since of Gas related illnesses, as many of the local people were unable to move away from Bhopal after the incident.

Answer 66

Wolf also states that corporations and businesses may be responsible for the majority of the air, water and land pollution due to illegal dumping and health and safety breaches, but they are not the only perpetrators of environmental crime.

Answer 67

Santana (2002) points out that the military are the biggest institutional polluters due to the amount of unexploded ordinance and shrapnel that is left behind in war zones. These can have lasting effects due to the toxicity of these items. He uses the example that farmers in Northern France and Belgium are still finding ordinance and shrapnel left over from World War I and some fields are still unusable for agriculture.

Answer 68

Beck explains green crime/environmental damage as part ‘the risk society’, whereby modern industrial societies create many new risks – largely manufactured through modern technologies – that were unknown in earlier days.

Answer 69

Ulrich Beck’s (1986) argument is that environmental problems are truly global – he argues that ‘Smog is democratic’, which suggests that traditional social divisions — class, ethnicity and gender — may be relatively unimportant when considering the impact of many environmental problems. Marxists offer an alternative analysis of the consequences of Green Crime to that of Ulrich Beck. Marxists argue that current social divisions are actually reinforced in the face of environmental harms, with poor people bearing the brunt of harms.

Answer 70

State crimes are crimes committed by governments. They were defined by Penny Green and Tony Ward (2005) as "illegal or deviant activities perpetrated by, or with, the complicity of state agencies”.

Answer 71

Eugene McLaughlin (2001) divided these into four types of state crime: Crimes by the security and police forces Economic crimes Social and cultural crimes (like institutional racism) Political crimes (like corruption)

Answer 72

Herman and Julia Schwendinger (1970) say that we should define crime as that which violate basic human rights rather than law breaking. Therefore states which don’t regard human rights are criminals. But their view is a little different, they say that any state that practice imperialism, racism, sexism, or inflict economic exploitation on their citizens are committing crimes.

Answer 73

Stanley Cohen criticises this because human rights violations like war crimes and torture are obvious, but other acts like economic exploitation are not illegal just morally wrong.

Answer 74

Stanley Cohen argues that states conceal and legitimate their human rights crimes. He says this because human rights and state crime are increasingly central to both political debate and criminology because of the impact of the human rights movements like Amnesty international an increased focus on victims.

Answer 75

Kelman and Hamilton (1989) studied ‘crimes of obedience’ and found 3 features that produce these crimes: Authorisation; when acts are approved by a form of authority – Milgram’s study of obedience. Routinisation; if its a routine people can commit it in a detached manor. Dehumanisation; when the enemy is portrayed as sub-human rather then human and described in as animals, monsters etc.

Answer 76

Wilson (1975) considers predatory street crime to be a far more serious matter than consumer fraud, anti trust violations because predatory crime, makes difficult or impossible the maintenance of meaningful human communities.

Answer 77

Bauman situation crime prevention turns contemporary cities into "fortress cities" where people are controlled and kept safe. In his image of the future development of cities, he imagined people not daring to travel far from the "fortresses" just as people sought protection in medieval fortified towns.

Answer 78

Postmodernists such as Lyng (1990) argue that the seduction of crime comes from the thrill of taking risks. From that perspective the situational crime prevention methods provide a challenge and therefore extra levels of thrill and risk.

Answer 79

In the 19th century – public protection and retributive justice were key. Punishment upon the body. In the 20th century we saw a change to rehabilitation and reform. However since the 1970’s we have seen a change back to retribution. 21st century- Retribution – Newburn 2007 – we have seen a huge increase in imprisonment with the number doubling between the 70s to 2014 (increased rhetoric in media and politicians on cracking down).

Answer 80

He argues that in the 1950s the state practised ‘penal welfarism’ – in which the criminal justice system did not just try to catch and punish offenders, but also tried to rehabilitate them, so that they could be reintegrated into society. However, since the 1950s individual freedoms have increased, while social bonds have weakened, life is more uncertain and less predictable, and (despite the fact that crime is now decreasing) the public are more worried about crime than ever. As a result, the state has now abandoned ‘penal welfarism’, it is much less concerned with rehabilitation and reintegration of prisoners, it’s primary concern is now convincing the public that it is taking a tough approach on crime and reassuring communities that something is being done about crime.

Answer 81

Rusche and Kirchheimer (1968 [1939]) show how historically labour market dynamics influence methods of punishment in a society. For example, harsh physical punishments (e.g. whipping) were replaced by work related labour punishments as capitalism needed the able bodied worker. Further, they suggest that punishment for the working-classes evolved to be harsh because of their alienation and lack of commitment to the law.

Answer 82

10% of men and 30% of women have had a previous psychiatric admission to hospital before they come into prison. 48% of all prisoners are at, or below, the level expected of an 11 year old in reading, 65% in numeracy and 82% in writing. 71% of children in custody have been involved with, or in the care of, social services before entering custody.

Answer 83

Erving Goffman (1961) argued that places such as mental asylums, concentration camps and prisons function as ‘total institutions’ – places which are closed off to the outside world and where inmates’ lives come under the complete control of the institution. According to Goffman, becoming an inmate in a total institution involves a process of “mortification of the self” – inmates are subjected to degrading and humiliating treatments designed to remove any trace of individual identity. For instance, personal clothing and items are confiscated, inmates are strip searched, their heads are shaved, and they are issued an ID number. The point of such treatment is to mark a clear separation between the inmates’ former selves and their institutional selves. Inmates are constantly under surveillance and they have no privacy. Minute behaviour is observed and assessed, and if necessary, sanctioned.

Answer 84

Surveillance society- this concept is a university level concept. Foucault argues that in society power is exerted from everywhere, as we are constantly being watched and therefore our behaviour is being restrained. The state has expanded its control over its citizens in more subtle ways and ‘invades’ our private lives much more than at it ever used to. This is especially true when you look at the way criminals are treated today. While prisoners are unlikely to be subjected to torture or death they are subjected to an ever increasing array of what Foucault calls ‘technologies of surveillance’. He first came up with the ideal prison system called the panopticon, the point of the panopticon is to make the prisoners feel like they are under surveillance 100% of the time, therefore limiting the prisoners behaviour and preventing uprising etc.