Deviancy and youth (theory) Flashcards
Matza
- Subterranean values only emerge in certain situations
- Neutralisation = use excuses to justify
Techniques of neutralisation
- Denial of responsibility = remove responsibility from themselves by blaming parents/are
- Denial of injury = argue that nobody was harmed
Martza - Delinquency and drift
- There is no deviant career
- He/she tends to drift out of crime again
Marxist explanations
- Clarke = low wages, unemployment and urban decay
- Brake = exaggerated w/c values (immigration)
- Hall&Jefferson = Can’t articulate
- Corrigan = low value on education
Marxist - relative deprivation
- Marxists would suggest relative deprivation = leads to crime
- This is where you have less than those around you
- Feeling like you have less = resentment = crime
- Capitalism promotes consumerism
Criticisms of Marxism and deviance
X Focuses on spectacular sc - ignores middle class e.g. goths X Only looks at white w/c sc = ethnocentric X Romanticised groups - skinheads X Doesn't take into account female sc = malestream
Functionalism - crime is functional
- Durkheim believed a low level of crime was inevitable
- It reaffirms boundaries of right/wrong in society
- Provides employment (police)
- Eisenstadt = blowing off steam to prevent further deviance
Albert Cohen - status frustration
- Low self esteem/low status at school
- W/C boys failed in school
- Developed delinquent subcultures
- Antisocial behaviour
- Provides status
Criticisms of functionalism and deviance
X Doesn’t take into account gender differences implying we are all sharing the same experiences
X Malestream
X Crimes like robbery (money > status)
X Written by older white men - ethnocentric
Interactionalist - Howard Becker
- Crime and deviance = socially constructed
- Media creating moral panics = Mods and Rockers ( Cohen)
- Jock Young = Hippy deviant career
Jock Young = Hippy deviant career
1) Weed
2) Media - moral panic
3) Folk devils
4) Deviant amplification - Heroin
Criticisms of interactionalist
- Blames society for giving out labels
- Doesn’t explain the reasons for the act in the first place
- McRobbie and Thornton suggest moral panics = out of date
> Desensitized to them in contemporary society
Feminist
> Heidensohn
- Research = malestream
- Different socialisation
> Smart
- Less opportunity
- Saving for the bottom drawer
> McRobbie and Garber
- Engaged in bedroom culture
Explanations why males are more criminal
- Committing crime = more masculine (exaggerated)
- Males have less social control - Smart
- Criminality goes against natural notions of femininity
- Males are more likely to be targeted by the police
- POMO = gender convergence
Criticisms to Feminism
X Outdated studies (bedroom culture)
X Don’t focus on ethnicities
X Most women are conformist rather than deviant - Laidler and Hunt
