ᥴrιmᥱ & dᥱvιᥲᥒᥴᥱ Flashcards
What’s the difference between crime and deviance?
Crime is an act which breaks the criminal law and will be lawfully punished with criminal proceedings, whereas deviance is in act which breaks social norms and will be socially punished with negative sanctions.
What is the Functionalist argument of social order?
Value consensus of norms and values, arising from socialisation. Social order is maintained because most people support, agree with and conform to the rules.
What is the Marxist argument to social order?
Society is based on conflicting interests between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. Social order is maintained because the bourgeoisie have the power to influence the laws and enforce order.
What is formal social control?
Laws and written rules. Agencies of formal social control are lawyers, police and prison service - they make laws, enforce them or punish law breakers.
What is informal social control?
Unwritten rules, such as norms. It is enforced by social pressure and reactions from the agencies of informal social control - family members, friends, colleagues. These reactions include positive and negative sanctions.
EXPLANATION OF CRIME (FUNCTIONALIST): Say as much as you remember about Merton’s strain theory.
MERTON (1938)
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ѕтяαιи тнєσяу
-> people’s goals are dependent on their culture due to socialisation (American people strive for the American Dream)
-> some people have this goal of economic success but lack the socially acceptable means to get there
-> this strain between the goals they are socialised to strive for and the means of achieving them may develop ANOMIE (a state of normlessness) where norms that regulate behaviour are broken down and people turn to whatever means possible to achieve their goals
-> when anomie develops, the rates of crime and deviance are increased
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-> juvenile deviance, such as vandalism, is not motivated by the goal of economic success
-> he does not explain why, when faced with anomie, some people remain conforming to the rules
EXPLANATION OF CRIME (INTERACTIONIST): Say as much as you remember about Becker’s theory.
Becker (1963)
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-> deviance is created because society creates rules (such as making eye contact) and those who don’t follow these rules are labelled as ‘outsiders’
-> acts are only deviant because of people’s reactions to it (for example, being gay is less deviant than it used to be)
тнє ѕтєρѕ σf ∂єνєℓσριиg α ∂єνιαит ¢αяєєя
1. A young woman is caught using illegal drugs and is labelled a deviant by society. This changes everybody’s view on her, and she is now ‘the local junkie’.
2. This status becomes her master status, overriding her previous status as daughter or employee. Her parents then reject her and she loses her friends and her job.
3. She chooses to resort to further deviant activities to support her habit.
4. She finally becomes part of a deviant sub-culture, identifying herself as a deviant. This is an example of a self-fulfilling prophecy, where labelling leads to a person actually becoming their label.
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-> too deterministic as some people have the power to undo their label
-> some people commit crime without being labelled (such as white collar crime by a respectable businessman)
EXPLANATION OF CRIME (MARXIST): Say as much as you remember about the Marxist perspective on why crime exists.
-> capitalism is based on materialism, consumerism and competition between individuals to obtain these products
-> not everyone can afford the best products and so will try to get them through any other means possible, including illegal means
-> laws are made by the elite and bourgeoisie, and therefore serve the interests of those classes whilst not benefitting the proletariat
-> white collar crimes (committed mostly by the upper classes) may often go undetected and unpunished whilst street crime (committed mostly by the working class) is more likely targeted
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-> not every criminal law supports the interests of the upper classes
-> does not consider why crime still occurs in non-capitalist countries
EXPLANATION OF CRIME (FEMINIST): Say as much as you remember about both the double deviance thesis and Heidensohn’s control theory.
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-> females who have committed crimes that go against gender stereotypes (such as child abuse) are doubly punished - not only by the law, but also by society for deviating from gender norms and being ‘unfeminine’
Heidensohn (1985)
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-> patriarchal society have different spheres, with men dominating the public sphere and women the private (household) sphere
-> a woman’s domestic life restricts her opportunity to commit crimes as their time is taken up by housework and childcare within the home
-> fear of male violence controls women’s behaviour in public (for example women avoid going out after dark)
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-> a radical feminist, so has a strong agenda and gender bias
-> fails to consider alternatives such as ethnicity and class
FACTORS AFFECTING CRIME (SOCIAL CLASS): Say as much as you remember of Cohen’s status frustration theory.
COHEN (1955) - NOT THE COHEN OF 1972
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ѕтαтυѕ fяυѕтяαтισи тнєσяу
-> working-class boys cannot compete on equal terms with middle-class boys to gain status and qualifications
-> they experience status frustration and join a delinquent sub-culture to gain status and hit back at a school system that branded them as failures
-> these sub-cultures may have deviant or criminal behaviour as their norms and values
-> he used questionnaires
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-> he shows a middle-class bias and assumes that all working-class boys aspire to the same things as the middle-class
-> feminists will question if his theory applies to girls as he only focused on boys
FACTORS AFFECTING CRIME (GENDER): Say as much as you remember about Carlen’s theory.
CARLEN (1988)
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-> working-class women are expected to make two deals: the class deal and the gender deal
-> the class deal is where they are offered material rewards if they work for a wage
-> the gender deal is where they are offered material and emotional rewards if they live with a male breadwinner
-> when these rewards are not available or not worth it, the deals break down and crime becomes a possibility for women
-> using unstructured interviews, she identified four major factors as to why women commit crimes:
poverty
living in residential care
drug addiction
the search for excitement
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-> her sample size was only 39 women so is not representative
-> she claims that women commit crime due to feeling unrewarded, which conflicts with Heidensohn’s control theory
FACTORS AFFECTING CRIME (ETHNICITY): Give 2 specific pieces of evidence along with the interactionist theory and Hall et al’s view.
Black men are 9.5 times more likely to be stopped and searched by the police due to institutional racism. This was further explored in the McPhearson report following the Stephen Lawrence case.
Black men are often labelled as criminal or deviant which leads to police being more likely to search them for crime. Some black men make this label their master status.
Hall et al claims that mugging was constructed by the media and politicians to use young black males as scapegoats.
FACTORS AFFECTING CRIME (AGE): State which age commits the most crime (or is the most highly represented in statistics) and why, using Lyng (1990)’s and Matza (1964)’s theories to reinforce it.
The peak age of crime is 17 as they are the most motivated by material factors such as new gadgets whilst also being easily influenced by their peers.
1995 Cambridge Study in Delinquent Development found a correlation between criminal children, family poverty and poor parenting.
LYNG (1990) - EDGEWORK (risk-taking behaviour)
-> young people attach themselves to delinquent behaviour because they are looking for thrill and excitement, and engaging in deviant acts provides this
-> they feel invincible with peer support and feel as if they do not care if they are caught
MATZA (1964) - DRIFT
-> young people drift into deviant behaviour in search of excitement
-> when they mature and take on adult responsibilities such as employment and relationships, they will drift out of such behaviour
What is the chivalry thesis?
Females are treated more leniently than males within the criminal justice system due to stereotyped beliefs that women need help rather than punishment.
Describe media amplification of deviance using Cohen’s theory of moral panic.
COHEN (1972) - NOT THE COHEN OF 1955
мσяαℓ ραиι¢ тнєσяу
-> certain groups are targeted as a ‘folk evil’, a threat to society’s values and stereotyped by the media (e.g. - teenagers wearing hoodies) and creates a moral panic
-> the false picture that is created is called deviancy amplification which can lead to some groups replicating the behaviour and increasing the cases or causing police to focus specifically on these exaggerated crimes whilst ignoring other ones
-> he used a case study in 1964 in Clacton (an English coastal resort)
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-> he assumes the audience is passive but, today, audiences are much more active and can critically evaluate media content
-> some problems portrayed as moral panics are legitimate, such as rising knife crime
What were the 2023 suicide rates in prison in England and Wales?
10.8 out of 10,000 in prison committed suicide.
Say as much as you remember about Durkheim’s theory to why crime is positive and inevitable.
DURKHEIM
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-> crime has three positive functions: social regulation, social integration and social change
-> too much crime is negative for society and can lead to its collapse, which is why institutions of social control are necessary
-> he argued crime’s inevitability by saying that even in a ‘society of saints’, crime would then be just a slight mistake due to the high moral standards
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-> does not consider many factors, such as unequal distribution of power
How many men and women were in prison in England and Wales in 2019 and why might this be the case?
Men - 78,806
Women - 3,837
-> McRobbie’s bedroom culture
-> canalisation of girls
-> chivalry thesis
-> glass ceiling (less opportunity to commit white collar crime)
What is anomie, how does it develop and what does it cause?
Anomie is a state of normlessness where norms that regulate behaviour are broken down and people turn to whatever means possible to achieve their goals that they couldn’t legally achieve, causing strain. This causes rates of crime and deviance to increase.
What does Merton say people’s goals are dependent on? Give an example and expand this concept.
People’s goals are dependent on their culture due to socialisation (American people strive for the American Dream). Some people have this goal of economic success but lack the socially acceptable means to get there, which leads to strain.
What are the criticisms of Merton?
-> juvenile deviance, such as vandalism, is not motivated by the goal of economic success
-> he does not explain why, when faced with anomie, some people remain conforming to the rules
What does Becker say about deviance?
Deviance is created because society creates rules (such as making eye contact) and those who don’t follow these rules are labelled as ‘outsiders’. Such acts are only deviant because of people’s reactions to it (for example, being gay is less deviant than it used to be).
What are the steps of developing a deviant career?
тнє ѕтєρѕ σf ∂єνєℓσριиg α ∂єνιαит ¢αяєєя
1. A young woman is caught using illegal drugs and is labelled a deviant by society. This changes everybody’s view on her, and she is now ‘the local junkie’.
2. This status becomes her master status, overriding her previous status as daughter or employee. Her parents then reject her and she loses her friends and her job.
3. She chooses to resort to further deviant activities to support her habit.
4. She finally becomes part of a deviant sub-culture, identifying herself as a deviant. This is an example of a self-fulfilling prophecy, where labelling leads to a person actually becoming their label.
What are the criticisms of Becker?
-> too deterministic as some people have the power to undo their label
-> some people commit crime without being labelled (such as white collar crime by a respectable businessman)
