Sociological theories of criminality.

Question 1

What are the sociological theories of criminality?

Answer 1

Marxism
Right Realism
Left Realism
Durkheim’s Functionalist Theory
Merton’s Strain Theory
Labelling Theory

Question 2

what is the bourgeoisie and the proletariat?

Answer 2

Bourgeoisie: who own the means of production (businesses, banks, land etc.)
Proletariat: whose labour the capitalists exploit to make profit

Question 3

What are the three main elements that cause crime in for Marxists?

Answer 3

Capitalism is criminogenic
Law making and law enforcement are biased
Crime and the law perform ideological functions

Question 4

What are the features of criminogenic capitalism?

Answer 4

1. The exploitation of the working class drives many people in to poverty.
2. Capitalism continuously pushes consumer goods at people through advertising.
3. Inequality causes feelings of alienation (isolation, separation) and frustration.
4. Capitalism is a dog-eat-dog system and the profit motive promotes greed.

Question 5

How can the features of the criminogenic capitalism lead to crime?

Answer 5

1.This means that crime may be the only way to survive. For example, an individual may steal food in order to feed their family.
2. People will resort to utilitarian crimes (e.g. theft) to obtain the goods advertised to them.
3. People will resort to non-utilitarian crimes (e.g. violence and vandalism)
4. Capitalism causes crime among the capitalists themselves. This encourages capitalists to commit corporate crimes (e.g. tax evasion, breaking health and safety laws) to gain an advantage.

Question 6

case study for law making and law enforcement are biased?

Answer 6

Akshata Murty, has potentially avoided up to £20m in UK tax by being non-domiciled and pays £30,000 a year to keep the status. “non-dom” status is entirely lawful and can save an individual from paying UK tax and they can live in the UK for 365 days a year.

Question 7

Making and enforcing the law?

Answer 7

Marxists see both law making and law enforcement as serving the interests of the capitalist class. William Chambliss argues that laws are designed to favour the rich and powerful.
For example, laws prosecute the homeless for squatting in empty buildings, but there are no laws against the rich owning multiple houses.

Question 8

Carson’s selective law enforcement study?

Answer 8

• Out of 200 companies who had broken safety laws, only three were prosecuted.
• Despite the large number of deaths at work, only one UK firm was prosecuted for homicide in 8 years.
• Corporate crime is often punished less severely with fines rather than prison time.

Question 9

What does “false class consciousness” mean?

Answer 9

this is the idea that Capitalist society seems better than it actually is, and largely, we accept it instead of trying to change it.

Question 10

Ideological functions of crime?

Answer 10

Selective enforcement makes it look as if crime is the fault of the working class. This divides the working class, encouraging workers to blame working-class criminals for their problems, rather than capitalism.

Question 11

What 3 factors do right realists believe cause crime?

Answer 11

1. Biological differences between individuals
2. Inadequate socialisation
3. Offending is a rational choice

Question 12

Biological differences between individuals?

Answer 12

According to Wilson and Herrnstein, biological differences make some individuals more likely to commit crime. In their view, personality traits associated with criminality, such as aggressiveness, risk-taking or low intelligence, are innate.
Can link back to Eysenck’s personality theory and John Wayne Gacy.

Question 13

Inadequate socialisation?

Answer 13

Right realists see the nuclear family as the best agency of socialisation. According to Murray, the nuclear family is being undermined by generous welfare benefits. He claims that this has led to a steady rise in the number of welfare-dependent lone parent families. Fathers no longer need to remain in the home and take responsibility for supporting their families, since the state does it for them.

Question 14

What does inadequate socialisation do?

Answer 14

Murray argues that welfare dependency is creating an ‘underclass’ who fail to socialise their children properly. Absent fathers mean that boys lack discipline and an appropriate male role model.
As a result, boys turn to delinquent role models in street gangs and young men gain status through crime rather than through supporting their families.

Question 15

Offending is a rational choice?

Answer 15

Rational choice theory assumes that we are rational beings with free will. Deciding to commit a crime is a choice based on a cost-benefit analysis.
Crime happens because the perceived costs of crime are low. Criminals see little risk of being caught and do not expect to receive severe punishments even if they are convicted.

Question 16

Example: Knife Crime?

Answer 16

21,300 knife crimes were dealt with by the criminal justice system in 2018.
4,500: children
558: jail
1,300: warnings and cautions
majority were given community sentences

Question 17

What 3 factors do left realists believe cause crime?

Answer 17

relative deprivation
subcultures
marginalisation

Question 18

What does relative deprivation mean?

Answer 18

how deprived or badly off someone feels in relation to others

Question 19

what are two factors that Lea and Young say are increasing people’s sense of relative deprivation?

Answer 19

1. The media continually pump out messages urging everyone to aspire to material possessions
2. Society is becoming more unequal due to cuts in benefits, unemployment, job insecurity and low pay

Question 20

Relative deprivation and crime?

Answer 20

people now have no chance of ever affording the sort of lifestyle the media portray. Footballers, bankers and others receive what many regard as undeservedly high rewards. Due to this unfairness some people will resort to crime.

Question 21

What does relative deprivation downwards mean?

Answer 21

people who are better off feel resentment against those who are actually worse off. This may explain some hate crimes against powerless groups, for example asylum seekers or the disabled.

Question 22

What are marginalised groups?

Answer 22

marginalised groups are ones that lack organisations to represent their interests and lack clearly defined goals.
they have a sense of powerlessness, frustration and resentment of injustice, which they express through crime.

Question 23

What are Subcultures?

Answer 23

They are a way for marginalised groups to cope with the problem of relative deprivation. Subcultures often share society’s materialistic goals but lack the means to achieve them.

Question 24

Example for subcultures?

Answer 24

Inner city youths may find that they are denied well paid jobs because of discrimination or the poor quality of education they have received. Crime then becomes an alternative means of achieving the consumer goods they desire.

Question 25

What are the two functionalists theories of crime?

Answer 25

Durkheim’s functionalist theory
Merton’s strain theory

Question 26

How does Durkheim see society?

Answer 26

stable structure based on shared norms, values and beliefs about right and wrong. Most people conform to society’s shared norms and do not deviate.
Nevertheless, some crime is inevitable, because in every society some individuals are inadequately socialised and likely to deviate.

Question 27

What did Durkheim argue?

Answer 27

Durkheim argued that deviance itself was functional, normal and inevitable. He said that crime performs important, often positive functions within our society.

Question 28

What does Durkheim say the 4 functions of crime are?

Answer 28

Boundary maintenance
Social change
Safety valve
Warning light

Question 29

what is Boundary maintenance?

Answer 29

Crime brings people together and unites them in their shared ideas of right and wrong. When we are united in the wake of a crime, consensus is promoted.

Question 30

What is Social change?

Answer 30

individuals with new ideas must challenge existing norms and values, and at first this will be seen as deviance. Therefore, crime is necessary to bring about social change such as new laws.

Question 31

What can be linked to boundary maintenance and social change?

Answer 31

Dunblane and Hungerford massacres, and the treatment of homosexual soldiers after WW2

Question 32

What are some social change examples?

Answer 32

Rosa Parks invigorated the struggle for racial equality when she refused to give up her bus seat to a white man in Montgomery - civil rights movement
Nelson Mandela was imprisoned as a terrorist for opposing apartheid in South Africa.
Eventually, society’s views changed, apartheid was outlawed, and Mandela was elected as the first black president of South Africa.

Question 33

What is safety valve?

Answer 33

Crime and deviance is like a vaccine. A small amount can prevent a larger amount from occurring.

Question 34

What does Functionalist Kingsley Davies suggest for a safety valve?

Answer 34

acts of deviance or low-level crime can provide a release that may be be satisfying enough for the individual to abstain from further crime and deviance.
Example: a man visiting a prostitute - deviant, criminal, but better than him assaulting his wife or a stranger.

Question 35

What is warning light?

Answer 35

Crime and deviance is a good indicator that some part of society is not functioning properly. For example, high truancy rates and school exclusion may suggest a broken education system.
This warning can then be used to take action and improve the social institution that is responsible.

Question 36

For Merton what is the root cause of crime?

Answer 36

The unequal structure of society.

Question 37

What does society expect?

Answer 37

American society values ‘money success’ or wealth as the goal people should pursue, they should achieve this through legitimate means such as hard work at school and in an career.

Question 38

What does Merton say is the reason on why society is unequal? What does it cause?

Answer 38

Opportunities for working-class people are often blocked by poverty and inadequate schools. These blocked opportunities create a ‘strain’ between the goal society says they should achieve and the lack of legitimate means to do so. For Merton, this causes crime and deviance.

Question 39

What are the four deviant ways of adapting to this strain?

Answer 39

Innovation
Ritualism
Retreatism
Rebellion

Question 40

What is innovation?

Answer 40

innovators accept the goal but find illegal ways of achieving it by committing utilitarian crimes. They are usually from the lower classes.

Question 41

What is Ritualism?

Answer 41

ritualists give up striving for success, they plod along in a dead-end job.

Question 42

What is Retreatism?

Answer 42

reatrists are dropouts who reject both goal and means.

Question 43

What is Rebellion?

Answer 43

rebels reject the existing goals and means, replacing them with new ones with the aim of changing society.

Question 44

what do Interactionists argue the cause of crime is?

Answer 44

people do not become criminals because of their social background, but rather because of labelling by authorities. They see crime as the product of micro-level interactions between certain individuals and the police

Question 45

What is a social construct?

Answer 45

meanings we create through our social interactions.

Question 46

What does Becker argue?

Answer 46

Becker argues that actions are not deviant themselves. They only become deviant when other people define them.

Question 47

What are some labelling theory examples?

Answer 47

Speeding and drinking

Question 48

What is differential enforcement?

Answer 48

where the law is enforced more against one group than against another.

Question 49

What did Piliavin and Briar find?

Answer 49

police decisions to arrest were based on stereotypical ideas about a person’s manner, dress, gender, class and ethnicity, and the time and place. Young males stopped late at night in high-crime areas were more likely to be arrested.

Question 50

What group is more likely to fit the typification (stereotype) of causing crime?

Answer 50

Working class and ethnic minority youths are more likely to fit the typification and be stopped, arrested and charged.
middle class delinquents are arrested they are less likely to be charged with the offence as they do not fit the picture of a ‘typical delinquent’.

Question 51

What is primary deviance?

Answer 51

involves acts that have not been publicly labelled. They are often trivial and mostly go uncaught, such as travelling on public transport without paying.

Question 52

What is secondary deviance?

Answer 52

results from labelling. People may treat the offender solely in terms of their label, which becomes their master status.

Question 53

What is self-fulfilling prophecy?

Answer 53

When the individual has now become what the label said they were.

Question 54

What is The deviance amplification spiral?

Answer 54

the attempt to control deviance through a ‘crackdown’ leads to it increasing rather than decreasing.

Question 55

Example: Mods and Rockers

Answer 55

They were two groups of people committing minor acts of vandalism together until the police labelled them as ‘enemies’ and criminals, so after this label they were known as enemies and committed more criminal acts.

Question 56

Example: Hippies

Answer 56

‘Hippies’ originally did not smoke any weed but after being labelled by using drugs, more of them had begun to live up to their label and started smoking weed