Theories And Perspectives Crime, Deviance, Social Order And Social Control Booklet Sociologists And Stats Flashcards
Feminists
Social control
A mechanism of patriarchal ideology - men reminding women of their subordinate position through responses to crime and deviance
West and Fred
Patriarchal ideology
When women stray from expected female nurturing and caring behaviour they are regarded as doubly deviant and often given a harsher punishment.
Newburn
The social construction of crime
Crime is a label attached to certain forms of behaviour prohibited by the state.
Crime seems easy to define there is no act that is criminal in itself.
Newburn
Crime is socially constructed
The fact criminal law varies from country to country and changes over time this reinforces the idea that nothing in itself is criminal.
Crime is socially constructed as it is not the act but how members see and define it which makes certain things crimes.
New domestic abuse offence created in 2015
The Home Secretary announces a new domestic abuse offence of coercive and controlling behaviour carrying a penalty of up to 5 years in prison.
The governments definition of domestic violence recognises the impact of coercive, controlling and threatening behaviour this as T been reflected in law before.
Downey’s and Rock
The social construction of deviance
Ambiguity is a key feature of rule breaking as people are often unsure whether something is deviant. Judgement depends on the context, the person and their motives.
What is defined as deviant also depends on social expectations of normal behaviour.
Societal deviance
Act seen by most of society as deviant
Situational deviance
Act defined as deviant in a particular context
Situational deviance examples
- Since July 2007 it has been illegal to smoke indoors.
- Attitudes to homosexuality pre 1967 illegal however 2013 introduced gay marriage.
Durkheim
Explanation of crime and deviance
- To a certain extent crime was inevitable - not everyone can be integrated into the norms and values of society.
- Crime is normal and an integral part of healthy societies - deviant individuals remind others of the importance of social solidarity.
- Without boundary maintenance crime rates might increase leading to anomie or normlessness.
Durkheim
Positive functions of crime
- Boundary maintenance - unites society in condemnation of the wrongdoer reinforcing shared norms.
The purpose of punishment is to reaffirm society’s shared rules not to punish which may be done through rituals of a court room and public shame of the offender. - Adaptation and change - All change starts with acts of deviance what challenges social norms.
Cohen
Positive functions of crime
Examined the role of the media in the dramatisation of evil
Davis
Other functions of crime and deviance
Prostitution acts as a safety value for mens sexual frustrations without threatening a monogamous nuclear family.
Polsky
Other functions of crime and deviance
Pornography safely ‘channels’ a variety of sexual desires away from alternatives e.g. adultery which would threaten the monogamous nuclear family.
Cohen
Crime and deviance acts as a warning to society
Deviance acts as a warning that an institution isn’t functioning properly.
Merton
Strain theory
Crime occurs as a result of tensions or strain arising from people trying but failing to attain goals society has set for them.
Merton
Modes of adaptation
When people cant achieve goals by socially acceptable means they look for others ways which might be criminal.
Hirschi
Control theory
- Attachment - the extent to which we care about other peoples opinions and desires.
- Commitment - personal investment we put into our lives.
- Involvement - how integrated we are so that we neither have the time nor inclination to behave in a deviant/ criminal way.
- Belief - how committed individuals are to upholding society’s rules and laws.
Cohen
Deviance
- Deviance is largely a lower-class phenomenon resulting in many from the lower classes unable to achieve mainstream success goals.
Cohen
Criticisms of Merton explanations of deviance
- Merton focuses on utilitarian crimes committed for material gain and doesn’t account for other crimes such as violence or vandalism.
- Explains how deviance results from individuals adapting to the strain to anomie but ignores the role of group deviance such as delinquent subcultures.
Cohen
Study focused upon working class boys
They faced anomie in middle class dominated school systems.
Young working class were frustrated as they lacked the opportunities to enable them to achieve societies goals - status frustration.
Status frustration led them to develop alternative set of values a ‘delinquent subculture.’
Coward and Ohlin
Response to strain and status frustration
The key reason different subcultural responses occur is not only unequal access to legitimate opportunity but unequal access to illegitimate opportunity structures.
Different neighbourhoods provide different illegitimate opportunities to learn criminal skills and develop criminal careers.
Cloward and Ohlin
Criminal subcultures
- Conflict subcultures - occur in any areas with high population turnover preventing a stable criminal network.
- Criminal subcultures - Provide youths with an apprenticeship for a career in utilitarian crime.
- Retreating subcultures - young people spending time together but not interacting with other groups such as those sharing a particular interest in a type of music.
Miller
Limitation of Cloward and Ohlin
Lower class has its own independent subculture with its own values. This subculture doesn’t value success so its members aren’t frustrated by failure.
Matza
Evaluation of Cloward and Ohlin
People belonging to subcultures use techniques of neutralisation justifying their behaviour by removing themselves from taking any violence because they were provoked or felt they had no choice.
Lyng
Edgework
Young people commit crimes in order to take risks and experience excitement.
South
Criticism of Cloward and Ohlin
Drug trade is a mix of disorganised crime and professional ‘mafia’ style subcultures.
Messner and Rosenfeld
Institutional anomie theories
Institutional anomie theory focuses on the American Dream.
They argue that its obsession with money, success and winner takes all pressure towards crime by encouraging an anomic cultural environment where ‘anything goes.’
Downey’s and Hansens
Institutional anomie theories
Surgery of crime rates o 18 countries they found that in societies that spent more on welfare there were lower rates of imprisonment.
Savelsberg
Institutional anomie theories
Applies strain theory to postmodern communist countries on East Europe.
Countries saw crime rise with the fall of communism.
Savelsberg attributes this to the introduction of western capitalist goals of money success.
Snider
Criminogenic capitalism
Argues that these types of crimes actually cost society far more than the crimes carried out by the poor.
Gordon
Criminogenic capitalism
Crime is a rational response to the capitalist system and is therefore found in all classes even though official statistics make it appear largely a working class phenomenon