paper 3 - 2022 Flashcards
define crime
a legal wrong that can be followed by criminal proceedings, which may result in punishment; an action or omission which constitutes an offence and is punishable by law.
define deviance
behavior which is disapproved of by most people in a society or group, which does not conform to shared norms and values.
define social order
general conformity to the shared norms and values, so that society is peaceful and predicable.
sociologists do not agree on how and why social order is achieved, and in whose interests it works.
define social control
the processes by which people are persuaded to obey the rules and conform . the agencies of social control are institutions that serve to ensure conformity.
define formal social control
- institutions that directly and explicitly control the behavior of the population, via passing and enforcing laws
- carried out by the government, armed forces and the criminal justice system including the police, the court and the prison service.
- people are aware they are happening
example and effects of formal mechanisms of social control
education =legal requirement to attend and behavior codes
workplace = official discipline procedures and codes of conduct
sanctions - warning from police, sentences, dismissal from work and exclusion from school
police, court and criminal justice system, government and the military = passing and enforcing laws that directly and explicitly control the behavior
military - rarely used in UK, however military tactics used at time of civil unrest
religion - within families and communities, sanctions = public exclusion
define informal social control
control our behaviour in more subtly way and are carried out by agencies such as the education system, the family, the peer groups, media and religion.
individuals are less aware but more important and effective.
sanctions = social exclusion (peer group), disappointed reactions from parents, being passed over for a promotion at work, celebrities being criticised in magazines
elements of a social construct
not fixed created by society different in different cultures - cultural relative laws define them temporally relative - change over time context dependent
why crime is socially constructed
relativity of …
time - drinking alcohol in 1920’s US
culture - women cant show their legs in Islamic society
circumstances - killing the a enemy solider at war
what do police recorded crime figures include
statistics produced from police, court and prison records
data collected in the crime survey for England and wales
a victim survey which asks people about their experiences of crime
collected by the home office and published by the ONS
strength of police recorded crime figures.
easy to access and have already been compiled
up to date and standardized - time between report and occurrence tends to be short
covers the whole population over a long period of time - help with identifying patterns and trends
no ethical issues
not an estimated sample - provided a whole count
weaknesses of police recorded crime figures
don’t include undetected or unreported crimes - dark figures of crime
don’t provide a complete picture about the individual crime
accuracy may vary between areas
influenced by changes in public perceptions
definitions, laws and police counting change - changes in police practice and government polices may influence them
pressure on police to meet certain crime reduction
the dark figure of crimes
term used for all unreported crime - hard to estimate how large the figure is
some crimes are more likely to have dark figures than others
Sociologists =
mumsnet et al
starmer
lindsay armstrong
mumsnet et al - dark figure of crimes
83% of those who are raped or sexually assaulted didn’t report to the police
1/2 were to embarrassed to report
2/3 hesitated because of how low conviction rates were
3/4 felt the media was unsympathetic to raped women
starmer - dark figure of crime
9/10 rapes or sexual assaults are never reported because victims don’t believe in the criminal justice system.
support - 2014 the ministry of justice relieved that conviction for SA fell
Lindsay Armstrong - dark figures of crime
went through a second ordeal by the defense lawyer in the court case leading to the conviction of her attacker but also her suicided / overdose
police discretion
an issue with police recorded crime figures is that they will be affected by the discretion and decisions made by the police
some police may be corrupt and have their own reasons for misrecording
however recent evidence suggests that practices which compromise the accuracy of the statistics are widespread
officers can also influence statistics by being affected by stereotypes.
manipulation techniques - coughing, cuffing and skewing
manipulation technique - coughing
offender may be encouraged to admit to a number of offences in return for being charged of a less serious crime.
this will improve clear up rates for the police
manipulation technique - cuffing
removing reports from the statistics at a later date, because officers decide either that they don’t believe the complaint or reassess the offence following further investigation.
improving figures
manipulation technique - skewing
involves forces putting further resources into those areas measured by performance indicators, to the detriment of other areas, thus skewing figures
James Patrick - the whistle blower
allegations of routine manipulation of statistics were made in 2013 by James Patrick. He provided evidence to parliamentary committee about his concerns. he was disciplined by the police and left his job as a result.
when a police officer analyzed data for the metropolitan police and found that serious sexual offences were routinely no-crimed and burglary was downgraded to a lower crime.
he has support from other senior officers - public administration committee attitudes and behavior which led to misrecording of crime has become ingrained, including within senior leadership
define victim survey
alternative way of measuring crime which involves surveying people about which crimes they have been victims of in a given period, including crimes they have not reported
e.g. the Islington crime survey, or Dobash and Dobash
strength of CSEW victim surveys
positivists views the BCS methods as highly scientific, representative, reliable and objective
random sampling - nationally representative = highly generalizable
structured interviews offer reliability because its standardized and planed in advance
uncovers the dark figures of crime - more valid than police recorded figures
limitations of CSEW victim survey
- Marxists point out that the general public are usually unaware that they may have been a victim of crimes committed by the economically powerful.
- left realists argue that they don’t tell us a lot about the day to day life in high crime areas such as inner cities as there is low respondent rates. - higher homelessness and less private housing
- Pinkington notes that the BCS distort the meaning of the numbers; a small number of crimes are violent or sexual but they are the most traumatic
the Islington crime survey
jones, MacLean and young
- inner city of London and Merseyside - 2 surveys
focused was a specific geographical area and looked at the impacts of crimes on individuals life and vulnerable groups
statistic - the Islington crime survey
found 1/3 of households had been effected by serious crimes in the last 12 months
crime was rated as a major problem second to unemployment
1/4 of people avoided going out after dark
28% of people felt unsafe in their own house
more than half of women stated that they rarely or ever went out after dark
young - Islington crime survey
the survey shows that the fear of crime is real and rational
understandable that 46% of people admitted to be worried about mugging as 40% of population actually knew someone who had been mugged
young - moral panic
police figures - male are more likely to be a victim to a crime than females
according to young this is not because of women facing a moral panic
trained researchers - sympathetically conducted interviews - found a considerably higher levels of victimization - due to the non-reporting of sexual and domestic offences through official channels
Dobash and Dobash’s victim survey
studied domestic violence
in-depth interviews with women at a refuge
such qualitative research is not aiming to compete with police recorded figures but access a particular group of victims and understand how the crime impacted their lives
limitations of the victim surveys
- young = dark figures may also affect victim surveys - relies on victims accuracy, honesty and memory. may get timeline wrong and others may not tell the truth for a various reasons - didn’t know they were involved in a crime e.g. trespassing
- problem with respondent rates - low representativeness of the final sample - low generalizability
- they exclude victimless crimes e.g. drug procession - not reliable to ask for people to self -report their own crimes
strengthens of victim-surveys - general
+ help discover new and emerging crimes - especially new types of fraud and online crimes
+ they can also measure peoples attitudes to policing and the criminal justice system
+ useful at identifying social groups at risk of being victims of crimes and have been used to design crime prevention programs
define self - report studies- general
a method of measuring crime involving asking people which crimes they have committed.
quantitative self reports
list of offences that respondents tick off the ones they have committed
provide picture of the typical criminal
e.g. Campbell
Campbell - self report study
conducted on young females and some young males
found level of deviance and crime within the genders was more similar than the police recorded figures tended to suggest
also some self-report studies found that statistic tended to overemphasis working class males involvement in crime
features of a self - report study
qualitative or quantitative data collected
interview or questionnaire
longitude in nature
often carried out on young people
focus on gaining a comprehensive picture
measure = family backgrounds, peers, education, age, gender and ethnicity
Cambridge study - Farrington - self-report study
longitudinal study
followed the criminals careers of 411 south London boys
aged 8 to 32
Edinburgh study of youth transitions and crime - self report study
longitudinal self report study of the offending career of over 4000 young people
focused on gender differences
information was collected from multiple sources about all members of the cohort once a year
proved a continuous account of events in the lives of the cohorts and not just an account of selected time segments
3 issue affecting the usefulness of self-report studies
- validity
- attrition
- ethics
validity as an issue of using self-report studies
how far do self-reports produce a true picture of the number of offences committed
- concerns about the truthfulness and accuracy of data gained: conceal offences or make false claims however respondents honesty can be evaluated by comparing it to official records
e. g. Farrington and west = found 94% convicted boys admitted to their convictions and 2% lied about being convicted
e. g. Farrington et al = found evidence that young boys are more readily admitted to their convictions than older males and females - because of their concerns to present a façade of respectability - self reports can also be compared to more direct measures of offending
attrition as an issue of using self-report studies
refers to participants and drop out rates
important issue because participants are hard to find and interview tend to commit the most offences according to evidence from Farringdon et al
- surveys with high attrition rates is likely to miss out a number of frequent offenders and under-estimate the true number of offences committed
e.g. Cambridge study - identified the issue of co-operation = uncooperative men at age 32 tended to have uncooperative parent at age 8 and at age 18 become so themselves
however the Cambridge study participation rate 4 sweeps continued to be extremely high (94%)
ethics as an issue of using self report studies
informed consent, confidentiality and the right to withdraw
Edinburgh study - gained consent from parent through a letter, those who wished to withdraw returned a tear off slip - children were fully informed on the purpose and know they could refuse anytime. children also signed a consent form to access their police records
- problem of matching the offenders definitions of criminal behaviors with police categories
additionally they tend to focus on relativity small groups of people and particular types of crimes
- reducing representatively
Sutherland - social class pattern and trends in crime (offending)
‘criminal statistics show that crime, has a high incidence in the lower socio-economic class and a low incidence in the upper socio- economic class’
2002 = the social exclusion unit reported many prisoners had a history of social exclusion - more likely than the general population to grown up in care and poverty.
67% of prison population have been unemployed (4% of general population)
32% have been homeless
Williams - social class patterns and trend in crime (offending)
found other factors common with the prison population
1. having run away from home
2. experienced violence/ drug misuse within the family
3. being excluded from school
4. having no qualifications
literacy and numeracy levels significantly lower than those of the general population
- data from self-report studies show the difference between offending rates for working + middle class people is not as high as the figures above show
Cavadino and Dignam - social class pattern and trends in crime (offending)
the difference between the classes gets vastly magnified - reasons for this include the type of offences committed but also class biases in the criminal justice process
the British crime survey - social class and victimisation
showed that young households, lone parents and the unemployed are all more than twice as likely to be burgled than the average household and the unemployed are more than twice as likely to be the victims of violence compare to average person
young - social class and victimisation
‘myth of the equal victim’
suggesting that certain groups such as the poor are hit much harder when they become a victim of crime compared to other groups
(supported by Kinsey)
Kinsey - social class and victimisation
Merseyside crime survey
found that the poor suffer more than the wealthy from the effects of crime
e.g. a victim of burglary who is uninsured will be hit harder economically
gender and offending - female vs. male
data from the ministry pf justice system shows that females accounted for only 18.7% of arrests and 25% of convictions in 2013. - females tend to peak in their criminal career at age 13.
police recorded crime figures consistently show that male commit around 80% of all offences - boys tend to peak in criminal offences at 18
gender also may interact with social class - in 2010-11 female offenders were more likely than male offenders to be on benefits before and after their caution, conviction or prison sentence
gender and offending - number of murder offenders in the US
show men tend to commit more aggressive crimes
however it doesn’t specify ages so therefore lacks validity
also in 2021 the unknown gender is valid as other genders such as non-binary are included
gender and victimisation - CSEW
victimisation rates are currently very similar between men and women but the types of crimes that men and women are victims of do differ
women worry more about being a victim of crime compared with men however young men aged 18 to 24 are the most at risk of being victims of crime (especially violent ones )
gender and victimisation - ICS
found women experience more curfews on their activities
half of women in their sample never went out after dark because they feared being victims of sexual crimes
gender and victimisation - crown prosecution service
estimated that 9 out of 10 rapes go unreported because victims believe that the criminal justice system will not help them
gender and victimisation - statistics
- 2/3 of homicide victims are males (uk)
- females are more likely than males to victims of sexual and domestic violence: female victims of domestic violence are often repeat victims because women find it hard to leave abusive relationships due to a lack of economic independence, shortage of safe shelters, young children
age and offending
evidence from police recorded crime figure suggests that young people are more likely to offend than adults
young people aged 10 to 17 are responsible for minority of incidents of police recorded crimes- 23% of police recorded crime in 2009/10 (represents a disproportionate amount of crime)
age and offending - gender differences
males aged 10 to 17 were found to be responsible for 20% of all police recorded crime in 2009/10
and young women were responsible for only 4%
females are 83% more likely to receive a youth caution than males
ethnicity and offending - ministry of justice
black people are stopped and searched 7x more than white people in 2009/10
in 2013 black people made up 3.1% of the population, accounted for 14.2% of all stop and searches
the overall number of arrests decreased by 3% in the last 5 years to 2010 but arrests of black people rose by 5% and Asian people by 13%. - black people were arrested over 3x more than white people
ethnicity and offending - Bowling and Philips
the crown prosecution service drop cases that are put forward by the police involving black suspects, suggesting the police charge black people more frequently based on inadequate evidence.
public debates about the level of migration from eastern European countries which are now part of the EU - politicians are concerned about the high levels of criminality found by the media amongst these groups
ethnicity and offending - association of chief police officers
despite the newspapers linking new migrants to crime offending rates in these countries the rate of offending was in line with the general population.
last 15 years immigration has increased but overall crime rates have fallen
(polish, Romanian and Bulgarian communities)
ethnicity and victimisation - inter-racial and intra-racial crimes
overall the racial incidents and racially or religiously aggravated offences recorded by the police decreased over the last 5 years from2005
home office evidence = suggest that black people are 5x more likely to be murdered by their white counterpart in England and wales - police records indicate that in about 1/3 gun murders both victims and suspect are black
what is global organised crime
a term used to describe illegal activities pursued by organised criminal groups or gangs which cross national borders.
such as drugs, people or arm trafficking, money laundering and terrorism
global organised crime = scale of the problem
estimate suggests that the world shadow economy could be as high as 10% of global GDP
what factors prevent an international response to GOC
- diversity of group + range of activities involved
- difficulties relating to international cooperation
- boarder issues + lack of common definitions
- increased trend towards state deregulation
- the lack of global attention at the expense of the threat of terrorism
global organised crime - Gastrow
suggested popular perceptions/stereotypes of organised crime are outdated e.g. mafia boss
key problem is that boarders are irrelevant to global crime organisations making them hard to track and pursue
predicts an increasing wealth gap and skewed income distribution in the global economy
- because of a growing demand for cheaper contraband and the expansion of criminal economies
global organised crime - Castells
resemble business networks - that use globalisation to work with criminal groups in other countries e.g. minimise risk and maximise profit by co-operating
however the view of co-operation is challenged by the relevance of GOC - importance of local context in which criminal networks function
what is green crime
criminal activity that affects the environment in some way or another
e.g. dumping waste or trafficking endangered animals
green crime - Aas
green crime demonstrates the intersection of the local and the global
- local environmental crime product of a chain of geographically dispersed events and activities
however green criminologists focus on legal activity that is damaging to the environment, such as deforestation and Co2 emissions. relating to the abuse of power for profit
green crime - potter
Marxists = damage of green exceeds damage of street crime as consequences of state sanctioned activities often relate to the environment
- fuel price protests by lorry drivers: shows how competition for resources can led to public unrest
- says the poorest people suffer from environmental harm and the rich’s corporations responsible avoid any kind of criminal repercussions
green crime - Carrabine et al
primary green crime - crimes that directly inflict harm on the environment and people as an extension
4 categories = air pollution, water pollution, deforestation, species decline and animals rights
secondary green crime - actions committed as a response to the commissioning of primary crime
e.g. attempts to cover up by breaking environmental regulation or dealing aggressively with protestors
responses to green crime
green criminologists = talk about the human harm caused from these activities
e.g. millions of deaths due to environmental problems such as absence of clean water
functionalism = functions of crime and deviance
- warning device
- help society to process (Erikson = todays deviants are tomorrows innovators)
- provides employment
- safety valve
- social cohesion - support each other
- reaffirms boundaries
Durkheim - crime and deviance ( functionalist)
- crime and deviance is inevitable and a product of the lack of attachment to the value consensus
- the spread of change in the modern society courses crime and deviance and leave people in a state of anomie (loss of old traditions and new economic processes )
- also argues for social order, which is only possible because of homo-duplex nature (selfish yet have morals )
- social order is important to weak members of society
- crime needs to be limited to benefit society
Merton - crime and deviance (functionalism)
argued with Durkheim crime is the result of people’s different attachments to collective values
- is an overall consensus but not all individuals are capable of realising the goals of society
e.g. American dream = value of meritocracy and materialism are the main goals in society
- crime emerges as an over focus on the goal of wealth over the importance of the institutional means
react to this by - 1. conform 2. innovate 3. ritualism 4. retreat 5. rebellion
Merton - 5 responses to blocked opportunities
conformity = continue to conform and obey the law. continue to strive for material wealth using legitimate means
innovation = socialized into the consensus, aim for material wealth, turn to illegitimate means to gain it as they realises that other methods are unlikely to produce wealth quickly e.g. lance Armstrong = cheat and lie to gain medal.
ritualism = realise they will never achieve material success but compensate by gaining job satisfaction - follow rules for ritualist satisfaction.
retreatment = reject goal of material success and legitimate means, depend on welfare benefits and reject cultural goals - drop out of society becoming suicides
rebellion = reject cultural goals and legitimate means of achieving them but do so for political or ideological reasons. - alternative goals that are seen as to extreme by society.
Cohen - crime and deviance (functionalism)
agrees with anomie but suggests that those at the bottom of society system develop a subculture of criminality
- most crime produces little material reward e.g. vandalism, but still happens as people are frustrated that they cant develop status or achieve social goals
- gain respect and prestige through crime instead of material wealth
define anomie
a concept used by Durkheim to describe a state of normlessness, in which social bonds which hold a society together have broken down, leading to a lack of social order.
the individual aspect of this concept was developed by Merton, describing how individuals may experience anomie when society’s goals and values seem unachievable, creating a strain and potentially leading to deviance.
Hirschi - crime and deviance (functionalism)
looks at why people don’t commit crimes
4 types of social bonds that produce conformity
1. attachment 2. commitment 3. involvement 4. belief
these controls are linked to Durkheim’s anomie and egoism and are products of deregulation
weakness of Durkheim - crime and deviance (functionalism )
- fail to explain why certain social groups commit crime
- ignore the fact that some crimes are always dysfunctional for the victims - rape, child abuse, murder
- Marxists = exaggerate the value consensus and underestimate conflict
strength of Durkheim - crime and deviance (functionalism)
extremely influential and has inspired other theories of crime and deviance, especially Merton and Cohens
define egoism
a concept invented by Durkheim which refers to being detached from society or the community and/or excessive individualism
strength of Merton - crime and deviance (functionalism)
influential - still has contemporary relevance - jock young uses his ideas when he argues that much crime is the result of the bulimic society in which working class and ethnic minority communities are starved of opportunity and binge on crime to achieve social status
weakness of Merton - crime and deviance (functionalism )
- suggests that crime results in economic gain but this doesn’t apply to violent and sexual crimes that don’t have economic benefits.
- white and corporate crime are committed because of the increase of opportunity
- underestimates the amount of crime commit by the middle and upper class.
