Social Explanations of Crime and Anti-Social Behaviour Flashcards
Social Explanation of Crime and ASB
Possible that crime is a learned behaviour as a result of the person’s social circumstances. The behaviour is determined but the source of the influence is social.
Labelling
If a person is labelled a criminal or deviant then that will define them and shape how society sees them.
What does Howard Becker argue?
Argues that powerful groups in society create deviance by making up rules and applying them to people they see as ‘outsiders’. Crime is a social construct.
Self - Fulfilling Prophecy
A prediction that directly or indirectly causes itself to become true, by the existence of the prophecy, due to positive feedback between belief and behaviour.
Can be applied to calling someone ‘criminal’ ‘deviant’.
Observational Learning
Criminal behaviour learned indirectly by observing and imitating the actions of deviant others. Observer must be motivated to do the behaviour.
Vicarious reinforcement
If C behaviour is to be imitated, it must be seen to be rewarded e.g. money or status.
Role Models
Young offenders may be susceptible to influence of role models e.g. looking up to a gang leader.
Strength - SFP
Evidence for SFP.
Study looking at boys in Ghana being named after the day they were born showed that the day they were named after which was associated with their behaviour eventually became a reality.
Shows how SFP had been formed and influenced behaviour.
Competing - SFP
Study found that boys with ‘baby face’ more likely to be delinquent and involved in crime than the ‘mature faced’.
Weakness - Labelling Theory
Only a partial explanation; implies that without LT, crime would not exist.
LT is too simple (reductionist) to be a single explanation of crime.
Weakness - LT
Limited evidence to crime; Although there are many studies, most were educational settings.
The teacher-student relationship is a very particular one in which expectations are important to a child’s educational attainment; very difficult to replicate.
Application
Knowledge of LT can help reduce its negative effects.
Braithwaite suggests that societies have lower crime rtes and reoffending rates if they communicate shame about crime effectively
