Unit 2

Question 1

1.1

Answer 1

Compare criminal behaviour and deviance

Question 2

What are values

Answer 2

General principles or guidelines on how we should live our lives - tell us what is right or wrong

Question 3

What are Norms

Answer 3

Specific rules or socially accepted standards that govern people’s behaviour

Question 4

What are moral codes

Answer 4

Basic rules or values held by an individual,group,organisation and or society as a whole
For examples: the police code of ethics - principles and standards that officers are expected too uphold

Question 5

Definitions of deviance

Answer 5

Deviance is behaviour that differs from normal
There is three ways too define it
1. Behaviour that is unusual and good - heroically risking one’s own life to save another
2. Behaviour that is unusual and eccentric - such as talking to the threes in the park
3. Behaviour that is unusual and bad or disapproved of - physically attacking someone for no reason

The last one is the most relevant for crime - it breaks a rule or norm in some kind

Question 6

What is a formal sanction

Answer 6

Ones opposed from official bodies - police, courts, schools etc
They are punishments for breaking formal written rules

Question 7

What is an informal sanction

Answer 7

Where the rules broken aren’t formally written down and are perhaps unspoken
When someone breaks these rules, others show their disapproval in informal ways
Examples: not speaking too them, telling them off, slapping

Question 8

What is a positive sanction

Answer 8

Rewards society approves of
Medals for bravery, praise from work,school, parents etc

Question 9

What is social control

Answer 9

Society trying too control our behaviour and ensure that we conform to its Norms and behave as others expect us to

Question 10

what is the legal definition of criminal behaviour

Answer 10

any bahviour or action that is forbidden by the criminal law

Question 11

what does actus reus mean

Answer 11

guilty act

Question 12

what does mens rea mean

Answer 12

gulity mind

Question 13

what is strict liablity

Answer 13

in some cases guilty mind is not required- the wrongfull act on its own is enough to convict someone.

Question 14

why can self defense stop laws or decrease them

Answer 14

if something is done in the act of self defense than it can soemtimes be justfied as not a crime

Question 15

the social definition of criminal behavior

Answer 15

society defininig what they belive too be criminal and what not too class as criminal behaviour.

there is three aspects due too this including:
differing views
law enforcement
lawmaking

Question 16

what is differing views?

Answer 16

the public will have a different view of what acts are really crimes as compared with the legal definitions of crimes

Question 17

what is law enforcement

Answer 17

not all criminal laws are enforced, and some come as low priorities of the police - like white collar crime will have more of a priority over drugs

Question 18

what is law making

Answer 18

not all acts that people think ought to be make into crimes have laws passed against them

Question 19

what is a summary offences

Answer 19

less serious offences such as speedig

Question 20

what is indictable offences

Answer 20

more serious offences like rape and murder

Question 21

what are some main catagories of indictable offences

Answer 21

violence against a person
sexual offences
offences against property
fraud and forgery
criminal damage
drug offences
public order offences

Question 22

what are formal sanctions against criminals

Answer 22

the penalties laid down by the law taht can be imposed on those convicted of a crime

Question 23

what is a custodial sanction

Answer 23

imprisionment, detention in a young offenders institution
the length of the sentance can vary due too the crime committed

Question 24

what aare community sentances

Answer 24

they are served in a community doing based work their rather than in a prision

they include things like probation orders,restrictions, curfews etc

fines: financial penalties which depend on the serious of the crime and that will decide the price of the fine

Question 25

police sanctions

Answer 25

cautions: a warning that is goven - normally for low level crimes and first time offenders
you must admit to the offence to get a caution

conditional cautions:
you have to stivk too certain restrictions and rules - such as going for treatments that the police have given and if you break nay rules than you can be convicted

penalty notices for disorder: : if you pay your penalty you wonr get convicted

Question 26

other implications of committing a criminal act

Answer 26

exclusion from certain occupations (working with young people)
may be placed on an visor
banned from travelling too certain places
restrictions too thigs like adopting, jury dervice

Question 27

criminal bit not deviant?

Answer 27

possessing cannabis- although it illegal people may not see it as illegal and agree thats its okay which means its not deviant

although many peope do see it as deviant do it sometimes becomes that

Question 28

deviant but not criminal?

Answer 28

homosexuality- people still see this as deviant although in most places it is completley allowed and it now acceptable

Question 29

1.2?

Answer 29

explain the social construction of criminality

Question 30

how do laws change from culture too culture

Answer 30

polygamy: legal in 58 countries
normally in muslim communities and countries it is seen as most acceptable but only for muslims
in is illegal in most countries and even some muslim countries
bigamy- the act of marrying whilst being married is illegal in the uk and can cause unto 7 years imprisonment

why law changes due to culture for polygamy : religion - different religions will allow different things too due what they belive in and what they think is acceptable
tradition: alot of countries will see things as a tradition and not unusual

adultery:
the act of two people entertaining in sexual acts whilst one or both are married
illegal in:
in most muslim countries
several African countries
21 us states
punishemnst can include stoning to death

legal: most countries including the uk and india
reasons why it is illegal/legal:
religion: christianity: not cheating is one of the ten commandaments
the position of women: where women have very subordinate positions

Homosexuality
Sexual acts between members of the same sex are treated as crimes in number of countries.

Illegal: 72 countries for men and 42 for women
Some countries can end in a death penalty towards people such as Russia

Legal: in the uk, Europe and north and South American
Indonesia

Why?:
Religion Many religions, including Christanty slam and luda sue lave traditionally condemned homosexuality y. Countries where religion has a strong influence over ov-making are more likely to have laus making homosexuality a crime. By contrast, in secular societies (ones where religion has less influence), social norms are generally more tolerant of sexual diversity.
• Public opinion Pols by the Pew Research Center show higher levels of support for bans on punis uity in some countries. Some of these are countries where religion has a strong Intese aire ampe, 95% in Egypt believed homosexuality should be refected) but others, such as Russia, are not.
• Sexism : The fact that male homosexuality is a crime in more countries than lesbianism is, May be due to sexist assumptions by male lawmakers that women were incapable of same sex attraction.

Cannabis : Laws on cannabis vary widely between different societies. In general, possession of cannabis for personal use is treated more leniently than growing, importing or supplying (dealing) cannabis.
Where is it a crime? In the UK, possession can be punished with up to 5 years imprisonment and supply with 14 years. However, sentences are typically far lighter and for possession may often bea fine or a discharge. Many other European countries have similar laws relating to cannabis.
Where is it legal? Some places have legalised possession for personal recreational or medical use. Others have also legalised its sale, including Canada and Uruguay. some countries, such as Portugal, have decriminalised possession for personal use.
This means it has been reclassified as a misdemeanour, or minor offence. The offender receives a warning rather than a more severe penalty.
Why?

Different norms and values Differences in laws on cannabis to some extent reflect differences in norms, values and attitudes between societies. Societies with a emphasis on individual freedoms may see drug use as victimless or as an individual’s right to do as they wish
Different ideas on how drug use should be controlled:
Some see as if it is illegal less people will do it, some see it as if people do it safety and it is provided to them they won’t have as many deaths and it can be controlled for

Question 31

How laws change overtime

Answer 31

Homosexuality
Laws on same-sex relationships have changed greatly in the UK in the recent decades.
Changes over time
In the UK, all homosexual acts between men were made a crime in 1885, with a maximum sentence of life imprisonment. However, homosexual acts between males aged 21 or over were legalised in England and Wales in 1967, in Scotland in 1980 and Northern Ireland in 1982 (lesbian acts had never been illegal). The age of consent was reduced to 18 in 1994 and then equalised with heterosexuals at 16 in 2000.
The British introduced many laws into their colonies during the period of the British Empire. For example, in 1861, they introduced a law in India making homosexuality a crime. This law was struck down by India’s Supreme Court in 2018 and homosexuality is no longer an offence.

Reasons why the law changed
The Wolfenden Report After the Second World War, there was an increase in prosecutions of gay men and by 1954 over 1,000 were in prison. Following several trials of well-known figures, the government set up a committee under Sir John Wolfenden to consider reform of the law.
After gathering evidence from police, psychiatrists, religious leaders and gay men (whose identity had to be concealed), the committee’s report published in 1957 recommended that homosexual acts in private between consenting adults over 21 be legalised.
Campaigns The Homosexual Law Reform Society, made up of leading public figures, successfully campaigned for the change in the law that legalised gay sex in 1967. Further campaigns by Stonewall and the Campaign for Homosexual Equality led eventually to equalising the age of consent at 16.
Politicians such as Roy Jenkins supported the campaign for change and as Home Secretary he introduced the necessary legislation in 1967. Others since have introduced further legislation such as the 2010 Equality Act which outlaws discrimination of grounds of sexual orientation.
Human rights in India the main reason for the change in the law was the decision of the Supreme Court that the state has no right to control citizens’ private lives. In the UK this concern with equal rights also underlies changes in the law on homosexuality

Drug laws!
Drug laws have changed over time in many countries. In some cases, possession of certain drugs has been made a criminal offence, while in other cases it has been decriminalised, as in the case of Portugal below.
Changes over time
The Portuguese case is an interesting example. From 2001, possession of drugs was changed from a crime to a civil offence, if the quantity involved was less than for a ten-day personal supply.
The new law applied to both ‘hard’ drugs such as heroin and ‘soft’ ones such as cannabis.
The background to the change in the law is interesting. From the 1930s until 1975 Portugal had been ruled by a right-wing dictatorship as a ‘closed’ and strictly regulated society (Coca Cola was banned and citizens even had to obtain a licence to own a cigarette lighter!).
After a revolution in 1975, Portugal became a democracy and the increased openness of the country led to a large influx of drugs. Very soon, Portugal had the highest rates of heroin addiction in Europe, as well as soaring rates of HIV infection caused by needle-sharing among addicts.
Public health The thinking behind decriminalisation was that drug use should be regarded as a public health issue aimed at harm reduction, rather than an issue for the criminal justice system.
Users are referred to health and other support services rather than being prosecuted.
Since the change in the law, drug use has fallen sharply. HIV infections among addicts are almost non-existent and deaths from drugs are now the lowest in Europe: around 4 per million of the population, compared with figures for England and Wales of around 44 per million.
Reasons why the law changed
The basic reason for the change was the sudden and rapid growth in the scale of drug addiction in Portugal after 1975: by the 1990s, one in every 100 of the population was addicted to heroin.
This led to calls for drastic action to tackle the problem.
It was also felt that, as a relatively poor country, the new law would reduce the costs resulting from drug use and one source points to a saving of 18%.

Gun control laws:

Changes over time In the UK, laws governing access to firearms changed following two mass shootings:
• In 1987, Michael Ryan, an unemployed antique dealer, shot and killed 16 people in Hungerford, Berkshire.
• In 1996, 16 children and one teacher were shot dead at Dunblane primary school near Stirling in Scotland by Thomas Hamilton, an unemployed former scout leader.
Most of the weapons used, including several semi-automatics capable of rapidly firing multiple rounds, were legally held.
As a result, the law was tightened in 1997 following a government enquiry led by a senior former judge, Lord Cullen. John Major’s Conservative government introduced an act banning all handguns except .22 single shot weapons. Following Labour’s victory in the general election later that year, Tony Blair’s government introduced a second Firearms (Amendment) Act, banning the remaining handguns as well. Apart from some historic and sporting weapons, it is now illegal to own a handgun in Great Britain.
Reasons why the law changed
The main reason for the change in the law was the public outcry following Hungerford and especially Dunblane. However, two important campaigns helped to press for a change in the law:
• The Gun Control Network, set up by lawyers, academics and parents of victims to campaign for tighter gun control laws.
• The Snowdrop Campaign, started by bereaved Dunblane parents and their friends, organised a petition and collected 750,000 signatures calling for a change in the law.

Laws relating to children:

Childhood is a very good example of social construction. Although everyone goes through a biological stage of physical immaturity in the first years of life, how society has defined this phase has varied greatly over time.
In British society today, the dominant idea of childhood is of a special time of happiness -
‘the best years of your life’ (though this is not to say that reality always lives up to this ideal).
We see children as fundamentally different from adults: vulnerable, innocent and in need of protection and nurturing. As a result, in many ways children are kept separate from the adult world and its dangers.
Changes over time However, it has not always been like this. The historian Philippe Ariès argues that until the 13th century, ‘the idea of childhood did not exist’. Children were put out to work from an early age and were in effect ‘mini-adults’ with the same rights and duties as everyone else. The law often made no distinction between children and adults, and children could face the same severe punishments as those handed out too adults. Over time, the idea of childhood as a separate stage in life gradually developed and society becartie, the chiat-centred: Parents invest a great deal in their children both emotionally and financially, and the state takes a great interest in their wellbeing.

Changes in the law
As a result of growing concern for children and their welfare, there have been important changes in the laws relating to children in the last two centuries. These changes reflect how society’s view of childhood has changed over time.
• Laws excluding children from paid work. In the 19” century, children as young as six were widely used in cotton mills, calmines and other industries. A series of Factory Acts gradually excluded children from the workplace.
• Compulsory schooling introduced in 1880 ensured a basic education for all and also had the effect of keeping children out of paid work.
• Child protection and welfare legislation, such as the 2004 Children Act made the child’s welfare the fundamental principle underpinning the work of agencies such as social services.
• Children’s rights The Children Act defines parents as having ‘responsibilities’ rather than
‘rights’ in relation to children, while the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child
(1989) lays down basic rights such as entitlement to healthcare and education, protection from abuse and the right to participate in decisions that affect them, such as custody cases.
• Laws and policies that only apply to children, such as minimum ages for a wide range of activities, from sex to smoking, reinforce the idea that children are different from adults and so different rules must be applied to their behaviour.

Laws concerning physical punishment:

in the past, physical punishment for criminal behaviour was common. At various times in British history, criminals (depending on their crime) could be punished by:
• capital punishment (execution) by hanging, not only for murder but also for less serious crimes. For example, the 1723 Black Act made over 50 offences of theft and poaching into
capital crimes.
• corporal punishment has included logging, birching (caning), branding with hot irons and being put in the stocks.

Changes in law:
Abolished in britian in 1965
Corporal punishment also finally disappeared

Reasons for change:
Breaches moral basic rights
Nothing can be done if it’s a mistake
It doesn’t act as a deterrent
murder and treason er of offences carrying the death penalty was reduced, until it remained only for mas also go teary no capeat eu nitment was finaly abolshed in ridinen, unt Corporal punishmenti his as ra uly isan eared For example, flogging in the armed torin was abolished in 181 and all corporal punishment of offenders was abolished in 1967.

Question 32

How laws are applied differently according to circumstances in which actions occur

Answer 32

Differential enforcement of the law
The law is not always enforced equally. For example, as we saw in Unit 1, Topic 1.5, moral panics about certain crimes and the situations in which they occur can lead to offenders being treated more harshly by the courts.
Moral panics Those convicted of relatively minor offences committed during the London riots of 2011, such as theft, were more likely to receive custodial sentences than similar cases committed under ‘normal’ conditions. Likewise, the courts imposed more severe sentences on youths convicted of offences during the moral panic over mods and rockers in the 1960s. In these cases, the stiffer sentences were often handed down to ‘teach young people a lesson’ and to deter others.
Typifications Another way in which the law may be enforced differently against similar cases is shown by the work of Chambliss. Chambliss studied two groups of youths, the middle-class “Saints’ and the working-class ‘Roughnecks’. He found that, while both groups committed offences, the police enforced the law more strictly against the Roughnecks.
Chambiss’s research supports that of Cicourel. As we saw in Unit 1, Topic 1.5, Cicourel argues that police officers hold typifications - ideas about what a typical criminal is like. For example, they are more likely to regard working-class rather than middle-class individuals with suspicion, resulting in more arrests for this group.
Similarly, Piliavin and Briar found that ‘situational factors’ play a large part in police officers’ decisions to stop or arrest a person. These include the individual’s class, ethnicity, age, attitude towards the officer, and place and time of day or night. Thus two different individuals can commit the same offence but one may be more likely than the other to be arrested.
Age of criminal responsibility
Two people may commit the same criminal act but will be treated differently by the law if one of them is below the age of criminal responsibility. This is the age below which a child is deemed not to have the capacity to commit a crime. The logic behind this is that children below a certain age are unable to understand the full meaning of the act they have committed and so cannot be held responsible for it in the same way.
The age of criminal responsibility varies from place to place. In England, Wales and Northern Ireland it is 10 years. No other country in Europe has a lower age of criminal responsibility than this. In Scotland the age of criminal responsibility is 12.

Youth courts and punishments Children or young people who commit a crime may be treated differently by the justice system. Most countries have separate courts to deal with offenders below a certain age.
In England and Wales, youth courts are special magistrates’ courts that hear cases involving people aged 10 to 17. Youth courts are less formal: defendants are called by their first name, and members of the public are not normally allowed in. The court cannot send anyone to prison but can impose sentences including a detention and training order carried out in a secure centre.
Homicide
There are three special defences contained in the Homicide Act 1957 which exist solely for the offence of murder, where the defendant can plead not guilty despite having killed someone:
• Diminished responsibility If a defendant can show that their mental condition substantially reduced their ability to understand what they were doing or form a rational judgment, this reduces the conviction to manslaughter.
• Loss of control is a partial defence that may reduce the offence to manslaughter.
• Automatism A crime must be a voluntary act - the defendant must have consciously chosen to commit it. If they can show that it was involuntary, they can plead the defence of automatism.

Question 33

2.1,2.2,2.3
+ 3.2

Answer 33

Describe biological theories or criminality

Question 34

Physiological theories?

Answer 34

Lombroso theory: born criminals
Sheldon’s : somatotypes

Question 35

Genetic theories?

Answer 35

Twin studies
Adoption study
Jacob’s XYY

Question 36

Brain injuries and disorders?

Answer 36

Brain injuries
Diseases

Question 37

Biochemical explanations

Answer 37

Sex hormones
Blood sugar level
Substance abuse

Question 38

What is lombros theory: born criminals

Answer 38

The first physiological theory of criminality was put forward by the Italian doctor Cesare Lombroso in 1876. He argued that criminals were physically different from non-criminals and he spent many years measuring and recording details of the heads and faces of thousands of prisoners.
From this research Lombroso concluded that criminals could be identified by their distinctive physical features, such as enormous jaws, high cheek bones, handle-shaped ears, prominent eyebrow arches, exceptionally long arms, arge eye sockets and extremely acute eyesight. He claimed that different types of criminal had different facial features. For example, murderers had ‘aquiline’ noses like the beak of an eagle, whereas thieves had flattened noses.

Atavism
Lombroso saw criminals as atavistic, that is, as throwbacks to an earlier, primitive stage of evolution. They were pre-social, unable to control their impulses and had a reduced sensitivity to pain . Thus, he argued that criminals were like savages or even apes.

In Lombroso’s view, such people were ‘born criminals’ that we could identify scientifically by ‘reading’ their bodies for the physical characteristics that marked them out as different.
Lombroso’s is very much an ‘us and them’ theory. We are normal and they, the criminals, are abnormal and fundamentally different from us.
Lombroso went on to identify two other types of criminal that he saw as biologically different: ‘insane criminals’ and ‘epileptic criminals’.

Strengths + weakness

Strengths
• Lombroso was the first person to study crime scientifically, using objective measurements to gather evidence. Previously, crime was seen as a moral or religious issue.
• His research showed the importance of examining clinical and historical records of criminals.
• His later work took some limited account of social and environmental factors, not just heredity.
• By arguing that offenders were not freely choosing to commit crime, Lombroso helps us to focus on how we might prevent further offending rather than simply punishing offenders.
Limitations
• Research since Lombroso has failed to show a link between facial features and criminality.

• Lombroso failed to compare his findings on prisoners with a control group of non-criminals.
Had he done so, he may have found the same characteristics among the general population; in which case, his explanation would be invalid.
• By describing criminals as like ‘primitive savages’, Lombroso equates non-western societies with criminals. This is a form of racism.

Question 39

Sheldon’s somatotypes theory

Answer 39

somatotypes theory
William Sheldon also saw criminals as physically different from non-criminals. In his view, certain body types or ‘somatotypes’ are linked to criminal behaviour. He identifies three somatotypes:
• Endomorphs are rounded, soft and tending to fat, lacking muscle or tone, with wide hips. Their personality is sociable, relaxed, comfortable and outgoing.
• Ectomorphs are thin and fragile, lacking both fat and muscle. They are flat chested, with narrow hips and shoulders, a thin face and high
forehead. Their personality is self-conscious, fragile, inward looking,
emotionally restrained and thoughtful.
• Mesomorphs are muscular and hard bodied, with very little fat and strong limbs, broad shoulders and a narrow waist. Their personality is adventurous, sensation-seeking, assertive and domineering, and they enjoy physical activity.
Sheldon argued that mesomorphs are the somatotype most likely to engage in crime. They are more likely to be attracted by the risk-taking it involves and their imposing physique and assertiveness can be important assets in crime

Strengths + weaknesses

Strengths
• Other studies have replicated Sheldon’s findings. Glueck and Glueck found that 60% of the offenders in their study were mesomorphs.
• The most serious delinquents in Sheldon’s sample were the ones with the most extremely mesomorphic body shapes.
Limitations
• Glueck and Glueck found that criminality was best explained not by biology alone, but by a combination of biological, psychological and environmental factors.
• Criminals may develop a mesomorphic build as a result of needing to be physically tough to succeed. If so, criminality causes somatotype, rather than somatotype causing criminality.
• Social class may be the true cause both of offending and of mesomorphy. Convicted offenders are mainly working-class males, who are more likely to be in manual jobs where they acquire an athletic build.
• Labelling may play a part. Mesomorphs may be labelled as troublemakers because they fit the
‘tough guy’ stereotype, resulting in a self-fulfilling prophecy. Or they may attract more police attention and get caught more than other somatotypes.
• Sheldon doesn’t account for those endomorphs and ectomorphs who do commit crimes. Nor does he explain whether mesomorphs commit crimes other than violence.

Question 40

Twin studies

Answer 40

Why does crime often run in families? Genetic theories solain it as fellows. Family members who dies cod relatives (e.g, parents and their children; siblings) share many of the same genes Therefore if one member has ‘criminal genes’, it is likely that his or her blood relatives will have them too, and this is why criminals have relatives who are also criminals.
Genetic theories have used studies of identical twins as a way to test their theory of criminality. This is because identical or monozygotic (MZ) twins share exactly the same genes - they both developed from the same fertilised egg. Therefore if one twin is criminal, the other twin ought to be criminal too.
Evidence
for this comes from Christiansen’s study of 3,586 twin pairs in Denmark.
• He found that there was a 52% concordance rate between MZ twins; that is, where one identical twin had a conviction, there was a 52% chance of the other twin also having a conviction.
• But among non-identical (dyzgotic or DZ) twins, there was only a 22% chance.
A similar study by Ishikawa and Raine found a 44% concordance rate for identical twins but only 21.6% for non-identical twins.

Strengths + weaknesses:

Strengths
• Because MZ twins are genetically identical, it is logical to examine whether their offending behaviour is also identical.
• Twin studies give some support to genetic explanations. Ishikawa and Raine found a higher concordance rate for identical than for non-identical twins.

Limitations
If genes were the only cause of criminality, identical twins would show 100% concordance, but studies only show around half or less.
• Higher concordance rates between identical twins may be due to sharing the same home, school etc. Their shared environment might cause similarities in their criminal behaviour, not dentical genes.
. Parents treat identical twins more alike than they do non-identical twins. Also, identical twins may feel closer than non-identical twins do, so one twin may be influenced by the other’s criminality to become criminal too. These environmental factors may produce similanties in behaviour.
It is ts impossible to isolate and measure the effect of genes separately from environmental effects.
In early studies, there was no way of knowing for certain if twins were in fact genetically centical, since DNA testing did not exist.

Question 41

Adoption studies

Answer 41

Researchers have also used adoption studies to test for a genetic cause of crime. These studies compare adopted children both to their biological birth parents and to their adopted parents.
The thinking behind adoption studies is that an adopted child (especially if adopted soon after birth) shares the same environment as their adoptive parents, but the same genes as their biological parents. If we find that the adoptee’s behaviour in regard to criminality is more similar to their birth parents’ behaviour, this would support a genetic explanation.
Evidence Medrick et al examined data on over 14,000 adopted sons in Denmark from 1924 to
1947. They found that sons were more likely to have a criminal record if a birth parent also had a record a concordance rate of 20%). This supports a genetic explanation. By contrast, they found that a smaller proportion (14.7%) had a criminal record if their adoptive parent had one.
Hutchings and Mednick compared adoptees with and without criminal records. They found that adoptees with criminal recoras were more likely to have biological parents with criminal records than adoptees whose birth parents did not have criminal records.

Strengths + weaknesses

strengths
• Adoption studies overcome the problem faced by twin studies, where biologically identical twins are brought up in the same household, which makes it impossible to separate out the influence of genes from environment.
• The research design is logical. In theory it allows us to see the relative importance of nature’ (the genes inherited from biological parents) versus ‘nurture’ (the adoptive family environment).
• Findings of adoption studies give some support to genetic explanations. They show adoptees were more likely to have criminal records if their biological parents had criminal records.
Limitations
• Gottfredson and Hirschi argue that adoption studies show genes have little effect on criminality.
• Adopted children are often placed in environments similar to those of their birth family, with families of the same class and ethnicity, in the same locality etc. Similar environments may produce similar behaviour.
• Many children are not adopted immediately after birth but remain with their biological family for some time. This early environment may be the true cause of their criminality.

Question 42

Jacob’s xyy

Answer 42

Abnormality of the sex chromosomes is another possible genetic cause of criminality. Chromosomes are made of DNA and protein, and they are found in the nucleus of our cells. Each chromosome contains many genes. Chromosome inherit all the genetic information that we inherit from our parents.
We normally have 46 chromosomes,arranged in 23 pairs. We inherit half of each pair from each parent. One pair consists of our sex chromosomes and determines whether we are male or female. Our mother’s two femalechromosomes are known as XX and our father’s two male chromosomes are XY.
Because we inherit one chromosome from each parent, we will have either:
• two Xs: one from each parent. If we have XX we will be female.
• or an X from our mother and a Y from our father. If we have XY, we will be male. It’s the Y chromosome that makes a child male.
However, sometimes there are abnormalities. One abnormality is an extra Y (male) chromosome.
This is known as XYY syndrome and has been labelled ‘super male syndrome’. Men with XYY syndrome tend to be very tall and well built, and of low intelligence. Jacob et al claim that men with XYY syndrome are more aggressive and potentially violent than other males.
Evidence This claim is based on studies of imprisoned criminals, such as those in secure psychiatric hospitals, where a higher than average proportion of the inmates were found to have XYY syndrome. Many had histories of aggression and violent assault. Price and Whatmore found XYY males to be immature and unstable, with a strong tendency to commit seemingly motiveless property crimes.

Strengths+ weaknesses

Strengths
• Jacob et al found an association between XYY syndrome and offenders imprisoned for violent behaviour.
• Price and Whatmore found some links between the syndrome and property crime.

Weaknesses
• Even if some violent offenders have the syndrome, this doesn’t prove it is the cause of their violence.
• XYY males are tall and well built, so they fit the stereotype of ‘violent offenders’ and get labelled as such by the courts, so they are more likely to get a prison sentence. As a result, XYY males are over-represented in samples drawn from prisoners and this overstates the importance of the syndrome as a possible cause of crime.
• Alternatively, XYY males may be over-represented in prison because they often have low intelligence, meaning they are more likely to be caught. Samples drawn from prisoners are therefore skewed.
• The syndrome is very rare (only about 1 in 1,000 men have it), so it cannot explain much crime.

Question 43

Brain injuries and disorders

Answer 43

Brain injuries
There are some rare cases of brain injuries being identified as the cause of criminality, such as the case of the railway worker Phineas Gage, whose personality changed after a major brain injury. Some studies have shown that prisoners are more likely than non-prisoners to have suffered brain injuries.
Diseases
Some brain diseases have been linked with criminal or anti-social behaviour. For example, in the 1920s, epidemics of encephalitis lethargica among children were linked to destructiveness, impulsiveness, arson and abnormal sexual behaviour. Other brain diseases, including senile dementia, Huntington’s disease and brain tumours have also been linked to various forms of deviant or anti-social behaviour.
Abnormal brainwave activity Brainwave activity is measured by an electroencephalograph
(EEG). Some studies show abnormal EEG readings among ‘clearly insane’ murderers and psychopathic criminals.

Strengths + weaknesses
Strengths
• In a few extreme cases, brain injury or disease has led to major changes in an individuals personality and behaviour, including criminality.
• There is some correlation between abnormal EEG readings (which measure brainwave activity) and psychopathic criminality.
• Prisoners are more likely than non-prisoners to have a brain injury.
Limitations
• Crimes caused by brain injury or disease are rare. The sufferer’s original personality is more important in whether they engage in crime.
• It is not clear that abnormal brainwave activity causes psychopathic criminality. Some psychopaths have normal EEG patterns and some normal people have abnormal EEG
patterns.
• Prisoners’ higher likelihood of brain injury could be a result of their criminality (e.g. getting into fights), rather than a cause of it.

Question 44

Biochemical explanations

Answer 44

Biochemical substances and processes have been suggested as possible causes of criminal behaviour, because of their effect on brain chemistry and mental processes. These include sex hormones, blood sugar levels and substance abuse.
Sex hormones
Males Overproduction or underproduction of hormones may cause emotional disturbances that lead to criminal behaviour. Males of most species are more aggressive than females, and the male sex hormone testosterone has been linked with crimes such as murder and rape. Similarly, Ellis and Coontz point out that testosterone levels peak from puberty to the early 20s and this age range correlates with the highest crime rates in males.

Females Pre-menstrual tension (PMT), post-natal depression and lactation (breastfeeding) have all been accepted as partial defences for women charged with crimes ranging from shoplifting toinfanticide, on the grounds that the hormones involved have affected the defendant’s judgment, mood or self-control.

Blood sugar levels
Hypolycaema and balcon su as e inkier aggressive reactions Studies show a link between ow blood sugar reson Acobo sunking large quantities of alcohol can induce envera
and increase aggression. Alcohol consumption is closely linked to crime a violence e schoenthaler claims heir anti-soring the daily sucrose intake of young offenders, he could reduce the level of their anti-social behaviour.

Substance abuse
This involves the intake of drugs and other substances. Some are legal (e g. alcohol and glues) or medically prescribed (e. g. barbiturates, while others are illegal (e.g. cannabis, MDMA, LSD, heroin and cocaine).
Saunders calculated that alcohol played a significant role in about 1,000 arrests per day. In the USA, Flanzer estimated that 80% of family violence cases involved alcohol. Cocaine and crack are also closely linked with violence, whereas cannabis, heroin and MDMA tend to reduce aggression.

Other substances
Other substances we ingest have also been linked with anti-social or criminal behaviour. These include food amitives acessie, allergens, vitamin deficiencies and lead pollution. They athest various biochemical processes in the body and this in turn can affect behaviour. For example:
• Both lead and the synthetic food colouring tartrazine have been linked with hyperactivity
• Vitamin B deficiency has been linked to erratic and aggressive behaviour.
However, the link between such substances and criminality is not always clear.

Strength + weaknesses

Strengths
• Sexual hormones, blood sugar levels and substance abuse can affect mood, judgment and aggression.
• Testosterone levels and male offending both peak around the same age, suggesting hormones affect criminal behaviour.
• Alcohol produces disinhibition, reducing self-control and leading to criminal behaviour, particularly violence. Crack cocaine has been strongly linked to violent crime.
• Biochemical factors are recognised by the courts. The law of infanticide states that if a mother kills her baby as a result of post-natal depression or breastfeeding, she has a partial defence to murder. Pre-menstrual tension (PMT) has been accepted as a defence in shoplifting cases.

Limitations
• Biochemical processes may predispose some individuals to offend, but it may require an environmental ‘trigger’ to cause actual offending.
• Scarmella and Brown found testosterone level do not greatly affect aggression levels in most men.
• challing found high testosterone levels in young males led to verbal aggression, but not physical violence.
• Infanticide may be due to isolation and the responsibility for caring for a newborn child rather than hormones.

Question 45

Individualistic
Psychoanalysis theory
Fraud

Answer 45

The first and most important psychodynamic theory is psychoanalysis, originally founded by Sigmund Freud (1856-1939). According to Freud, our early childhood experiences determine our personality and future behaviour; in his view, ‘the child is father to the man’. In particular, our early experiences determine whether we will go on to act in anti-social ways.
According to Freud, the human personality contains three elements: the ego, id and superego.
These elements are in tension with one another.
The id is located in the unconscious, instinctive, ‘animal’ part of the mind. It contains powerful, selfish, pleasure-seeking needs and drives, such as the desire for sex, food and sleep. The id is governed by ‘the pleasure principle’ - the blind desire to satisfy its urges at any cost. If we acted on these urges whenever we felt them, they would often lead to anti-social and criminal behaviour.
The superego contains our conscience or moral rules, which we learn through interactions with our parents during early socialisation in the family. For example, we may be punished for trying to satisfy our urges without regard for others.
Through socialisation, the child internalises its parents’ ideas of right and wrong, and the superego develops as a sort of internal ‘nagging parent’. If we act - or even just think of acting
- contrary to the superego, it punishes us with feelings of guilt and anxiety.

The ego Freud saw our behaviour as the result of the struggle between the id and the superego.
Literaly, ego’ means i desires (ia) and mosing directions,
between my desires (id) and my
conscience (superego). The ego’s role is to try to strike a balance between their conflicting demands.
The ego is driven by ‘the reality principle’: it learns from experience that in the real world, our actions have consequences. For example, a child learns that snatching a biscuit without asking may lead to punishment. The ego seeks to control the id’s urges while still finding ways to satisfy them.

How does this relate to crime? Psychoanalytic theories see anti-social behaviour as caused by an abnormal relationship with parents during early socialisation, for example due to neglect or to excessively lax or strict parenting. This can result in a weak, over-harsh or deviant superego:
• A weakly developed superego means the individual will feel less guilt about anti-social actions and less inhibition about acting on the id’s selfish or aggressive urges.
• A too harsh and unforgiving superego creates deep-seated guilt feelings in the individual, who then craves punishment as a release from these feelings. The person may engage in compulsive repeat offending in order to be punished.
• A deviant superego is one where the child is successfully socialised, but into a deviant moral code. A son may have a perfectly good relationship with his criminal father and so he internalises his father’s criminal values. As a result, his superego would not inflict guilt feelings on him for contemplating criminal acts.

Strenghths + weaknesses

Strengths
• The theory points to the importance of early socialisation and family relationships in understanding criminal behaviour.
• Psychoanalytic explanations have had some influence on policies for dealing with crime and deviance
Weaknesses

• Critics doubt the existence of an ‘unconscious mind’ - how could we know about it, if it’s unconscious?
• Psychoanalytic explanations are unscientific and subjective - they rely on accepting the psychoanalyst’s claims that they can see into the workings of the individual’s unconscious mind to discover their inner conflicts and motivations.

Question 46

Bowlbys maternal deprivation theory

Answer 46

Freud’s ideas have influenced many other theories. Probably the best known of these is Bowby’s maternal deprivation theory.
Bowlby argues that there is a link between maternal deprivation and deviant or anti-social behaviour. In his view, a child needs a close, continuous relationship with its primary carer (which Bowlby assumed would be the mother) from birth to the age of 5 in order to develop normally.
If the mother-child attachment is broken through separation, even for a short period, it can leave the child unable to form meaningful emotional relationships with others. Bowby describes this as ‘affectionless psychopathy’. In some cases, this can lead to criminal behaviour.

Evidence
Bowly based his theory on a study of 4 juvenile thieves who had been referred to a cid guidance dinic. He found that 39% of them had suffered maternal deprivation before the age of 5

Strengths + weaknesses

Strengths
• Bowlby’s research showed that more of his sample of 44 juvenile delinquents had suffered maternal deprivation (39%) than a control group of non-delinquents (5%).
• His work shows the need to consider the role of parent-child relationships in explaining criminality.
Limitations
• It was a retrospective study, where delinquents and their mothers had to accurately recall past events. This can be a problem, especially if it involves recalling emotive experiences.
• Bowlby accounts for the delinquency of 39% of the children in terms of maternal deprivation but doesn’t explain why the other 61% were delinquent. Deprivation cannot be the only cause.
• Bowlby’s own later study of 60 children who had been separated from their parents for long periods before they were 5, found no evidence of ‘affectionless psychopathy’.
• Bowlby overestimates how far early childhood experiences have a permanent effect on later behaviour. (This is also a criticism of Freud.)
• Sammons and Putwain note that the idea of a link between maternal deprivation and criminality is no longer widely accepted.

Question 47

Eysenck’s personality theory

Answer 47

Eysenck developed a theory of criminality based on his theory of personality. He argues that criminality is the result of a particular personality type.
For Eysenck, our personality is made up of two dimensions:
• Extraversion versus introversion (E for short).
• Neuroticism versus emotional stability (N for short).
Extraverted personalities are outgoing, sociable, excitement-seeking, impulsive, carefree, optimistic, often aggressive, short-tempered and unreliable.
Introverted personalities are reserved, inward-looking, thoughtful, serious, quiet, self-controlled, pessimistic and reliable.
Neurotic personalities are anxious, moody, often depressed and prone to over-reacting - whereas emotionally stable personalities are calm, even-tempered, controlled and unworried

Eysenck devised the Eysen Personality Questionnaire to measure people’s personality traits, extraverted, whereas people with a low E score are very introverted.

Conditioning Some psychologists argue that through experience, we learn to seek pleasure (or rewards) and avoid pain (or punishment). For example, if we misbehave, we are punished and so we learn to stop doing as to avoid further punishment. This process is called ‘conditioning’.
Eysenck argues that we learn through conditioning, but that some individuals inherit a nervous system that causes them to develop a criminal personality. He argues that this works as follows.
• Extraverts have a nervous system that needs a high level of stimulation from their environment, so they are constantly seeking excitement. This leads to impulsive, rule-breaking behaviour. In turn, this is likely to lead to punishment.
• Neurotics are harder to condition into following society’s rules because their high anxiety levels prevent them learning from punishment for their mistakes.
Thus, the combination of high E and high N is likely to lead to criminality.

Psychoticism in his later research, Eysenck added psychoticism (P) as a further personality dimension. People with a high P score are more likely to engage in criminality. They tend to be soltary misfits who are cruel, insensitive, aggressive and lacking in empathy. High P can overtap with serious psychiatric illnesses such as schizophrenia.

Strengths + weaknesses:

Strengths
• The theory is useful in describing how some measurable tendencies could increase a person’s risk of offending.
• Eysenck predicts that high E, N and P scores lead to criminality and some studies support his predictions: offenders tend towards being extravert, neurotic and psychotic.

Limitations
• Farrington examined a range of studies. These show prisoners are neurotic and psychotic, but not extraverted
• The E scale (extraversion) may be measuring two separate things: impulsiveness and sociability. Offenders score highly on impulsiveness (they lack self-control), but not sociability (they are loners).
• Evidence on prisoners shows a correlation between personality type and criminality, but this doesn’t prove that personality type causes criminality. It could be the other way round: being in prison might cause people to become neurotic.
• Convicted offenders (on whom the theory is based) may not be typical of offenders as a whole.
For example, less impulsive (low N) offenders may be more likely to avoid getting caught.

Question 48

Sutherland differential association theory

Answer 48

argues that individuals learn criminal behaviour largely in the family and peer groups (including work groups). It is the result of two factors:
Imitation of criminal acts: individuals can acquire criminal skills and techniques through observing those around them.
Learned attitudes Socialisation within the group exposes the individual to attitudes and values about the law. Some of these may be favourable to the law and others unfavourable. If the individual internalises more unfavourable than favourable attitudes and values, they are more likely to become criminals.
For example, in his study of white collar crime, Sutherland found that group attitudes in the workplace often normalised criminal behaviour (e.g. by claiming that ‘everyone’s doing it’).
This made it easier for individual members to justify their own criminal behaviour.

Strengths and weaknesses

Strengths
• The fact that crime often runs in families supports the theory. People with criminal parents are more likely to become criminals themselves, perhaps because they have learned criminal values and techniques in the family.
• Matthews found that juvenile delinquents are more likely to have friends who commit antisocial acts, suggesting that they learn their behaviour from peer groups.
• The attitudes of work groups can normalise white collar crime, enabling offenders to justify their behaviour.

Limitations
• Not everyone who is exposed to ‘criminal influences’ becomes criminal. They might learn from family or peers how to commit crime, but never put this into practice.

Question 49

Operant learning theory

Answer 49

Operant learning theory is the work of the psychologist B.F. Skinner. Its basic idea is that if a particular behaviour results in a reward, it is likely to be repeated. On the other hand, behaviour that results in an undesirable outcome is likely not to be repeated. The first kind of behaviour has been positively reinforced, while the second has been punished.
Behaviourism The cause of someone’s behaviour lies in the reinforcements and punishments that shape it. This focus on behaviour-shaping has led to operant learning theory becoming known as behaviourism.
Differential reinforcement theory Skinner argues that all behaviour is the result of reinforcements and punishments. If so, then this must explain criminal behaviour too. An example of this approach is Jeffery’s differential reinforcement theory.
Jeffery argues that criminal behaviour is learned through the reinforcement of particular behaviours.
If crime has more rewarding consequences than punishing ones for an individual, they will be more likely to engage in criminal behaviour. These rewards could be financial, but also emotional (e.g. friendship or the respect of peers). If we want to explain someone’s offending, we need to look at the balance of rewards and punishments for the particular individual.

Strengths and limitations:

Strengths
• Skinner’s studies of learning in animals show that they learn from experience through reinforcement. Some human learning is also of this kind.
• This can be applied to offending. Jeffery states that if crime leads to more rewarding than punishing outcomes for an individual, they will be more likely to offend.

Limitations
• Operant learning theory is based on studies of learning in animals. This is not an adequate model of how humans learn criminal behaviour.
• The theory ignores internal mental processes such as thinking, personal values and attitudes.
It explains criminal behaviour solely in terms of external rewards and punishments.
• Humans have free will and can choose their course of action. For example, we can choose to do something that causes us suffering in order to help someone else.

Question 50

Social learning theory
Bandura

Answer 50

Bandura argues that we learn much of our behaviour - including aggressive behaviour - by imitating other people. For this reason, his approach is known as observational or social learning theory.
Models Bandura calls these other people ‘models’, because we model our behaviour on how we see them behaving. However, we don’t copy just anybody’s behaviour. For example, we are more likely to imitate the model’s behaviour if they are of a higher status than us.
Even then, whether we imitate their behaviour mainly depends on the consequences of that behaviour. If we see the model being rewarded for their behaviour, we are more likely to imitate it than if we see them being punished for it.
Bandura et al demonstrated this in a series of experiments with 4-5 year olds. They divided the children into three groups. All three were then shown a film of an adult model being verbally and physically aggressive towards an inflatable Bobo doll.
• Group 1 saw a version of the film where the model was rewarded with praise.
• Group 2 saw a version in which the model was punished (told off).
• Group 3 was a control group. In the version they saw, the behaviour was neither rewarded nor punished.
Later, they were left to play with the doll. Group 1 imitated the aggressive behaviours they had seen being rewarded. Group 3, the control group, also imitated the model, though less so. Group 2, who had observed the model being punished, were the least likely to imitate the aggressive behaviour.
Therefore, whether they imitated the behaviour depended on the consequences they had observed for the model. They learned by observing someone else’s experience.
This can be applied to criminal behaviour. If an individual observes a model (e.g. a peer) getting rewarded for their criminality, the theory predicts that the behaviour is more likely to be imitated.

Strengths and weaknesses

Strengths
• Unlike Skinner, Bandura takes account of the fact that we are social beings. We learn from the experiences of others, not just from our own direct experience.
• Bandura shows that children who observed aggressive behaviour being rewarded, imitated that behaviour. This shows the importance of role models in learning deviant behaviour.
Limitations
• The theory is based on laboratory studies. Laboratories are artificial settings and findings may not be valid for real-life situations.
• The theory assumes people’s behaviour is completely determined by their learning experiences and ignores their freedom of choice. This also conflicts with legal views of crime, which assume that we have free will to commit crime.
• Not all observed behaviour is easily imitated. We might see a film in which a safecracker is rewarded with the ‘loot’, but we lack the skills to imitate the behaviour.

Question 51

Criminal personality theory

Answer 51

Psychologists Yochelson and Samenow have applied cognitive theory to criminality. Their key dea is that criminals are prone to faulty thinking and this makes them more likely to commit crime. Their criminal personality theory is based on a long-term study of 240 male offenders, most of whom had been committed to psychiatric hospital.
Thinking errors They argue that criminals show a range of errors and biases in their thinking and decision-making. These include lying; secretiveness; need for power and control; super-optimism; failure to understand other’s positions; lack of trust in others; uniqueness (the feeling that they are special) and the victim stance (blaming others and seeing themselves as the victim).
These errors and biases lead the individual to commit crime.

Strengths and limitations:

Strengths
• The idea that criminals’ thinking patterns are different from normal has led to other research.
For example, PICTS (the Psychological Inventory of Criminal Thinking Styles) is a questionnaire aimed at revealing whether someone shows criminal thought patterns.
• Successful treatments, known as cognitive behavioural therapy, have been developed based on the idea that criminal’ thought processes can be corrected with treatment.
Limitations
• Yochelson and Samenow did not use a control group of non-criminals to see if ‘normal’ people also make the same thinking errors.
• Their sample was unrepresentative: there were no women and most of the men had been found insane and sent to psychiatric hospital. Yet Yochelson and Samenow claim that all offenders share the same thinking errors as this sample.
• There was high sample attrition (drop-out rate). By the end only 30 were left in the study.

Question 52

Kohlbergs moral development theory

Answer 52

This is a theory of how we develop our moral thinking. As such it is potentially relevant to understanding criminals thinking.
Kohlberg argues that our ideas of right and wrong develop through a series of levels and stages from childhood to adulthood. At the ‘pre-conventional’ or pre-moral level, young children define right and wrong simply in terms of what brings punishment or rewards, whereas by adulthood, our ideas of right and wrong involve an understanding of underlying moral principles and values.
This suggests that criminals’ moral development is stuck at a less mature level than everyone else’s. They are likely to think solely in terms of whether their actions will lead to a reward or punishment, rather than how it might affect others. This makes them more likely to offend.
Cognitive behavioural therapy Cognitive theories that see delinquents’ thought patterns as different from those of normal people have led to a range of treatments for offenders. These come under the general heading of cognitive behavioural therapy.

Strengths and limitations:

Strengths
• Some studies show delinquents are more likely to have immature moral development, as the theory predicts.

Thornton and Reid found the theory to be truer for crimes such as theft and robbery than crimes of violence
Limitations
• Kohlberg focuses on moral thinking rather than moral behaviour. Someone may be perfectly capable of thinking morally while acting immorally.

Question 53

Sociological
Durkeims functionalist theory

Answer 53

Durkheim (1858-1917) see society as a stable structure based on shared norms, values and beliefs about right and wrong. This produces social solidarity or integration, where all members of society feel they belong to the same harmonious unit. Most people conform to society’s shared norms and do not deviate.
Crime is inevitable
Nevertheless, some crime is inevitable, because in every society some individuals are inadequately socialised and likely to deviate. Society also contains many social groups, each with different values, so shared rules of behaviour become less clear. Durkheim calls this ‘anomie’ (normlessness) - where shared norms become weakened.
The functions of crime
According to Durkheim, crime in fact performs important functions:
1. Boundary maintenance Crime produces a reaction that unites society’s members against the wrongdoer, reminding them of the boundary between right and wrong, and reaffirming their shared rules.
2.Social change
For society to progress, individuals with new ideas must challenge existing norms and values, and at first this will be seen as deviance.
3.Safety valve
For example, Davis argues that prostitution acts to release men’s sexual frustrations without threatening the nuclear family.
4.Warning light Deviance indicates that an institution isn’t functioning properly; e.g. high truancy rates could indicate problems with the education system.

Strengths and limitations:

• Durkheim was the first to recognise that crime can have positive functions for society, e.g. reinforcing boundaries between right and wrong by uniting people against the wrongdoer.
Limitations
• Durkheim claims society requires a certain amount of deviance to function but offers no way of knowing how much is the right amount.
• While crime might be functional for some, it is not functional for victims.

Question 54

Merton strain theory

Answer 54

For Robert K. Merton, the root cause of crime lies in the unequal structure of society. He focuses on the USA but his ideas can also be applied to the UK. American society values ‘money success’ or wealth as the goal people should pursue and tells them they should achieve this through legitimate means such as hard work at school and in a career.
Blocked opportunities However, not everyone has an equal chance of achieving success legitimately because American society is very unequal. Opportunities for working-class people are often blocked by poverty and inadequate schools. This creates 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. Some people (Merton calls them ‘conformists’) can achieve society’s goal legitimately. But for those who cannot, he sees four possible deviant ways of adapting to this strain, based on whether they accept society’s goal and/or means:
• Innovation: innovators accept the goal but find illegal ways of achieving it by committing utilitarian crimes (ones involving financial gain). They are usually from the lower classes, where legitimate opportunities are blocked.
• Ritualism: ritualists give up striving for success. They plod along in a dead-end job.
• Retreatism: retreatists are dropouts who reject both goal and means. Merton includes
‘vagrants, drunkards and drug addicts’.
• Rebellion: rebels reject the existing goals and means, replacing them with new ones with the aim of changing society. Examples include political radicals and alternative cultures such as hippies.

Strengths and weaknesses:

Strengths
• Merton shows how both normal and deviant behaviour arise from the same goals.
Conformists and innovators both pursue ‘money success’, but by different means.

• He explains the patterns shown in official statistics: most crime is property crime, because society values wealth so highly; working class crime rates are higher, because they have less opportunity to obtain wealth legitimately.
Limitations
• Merton ignores crimes of the wealthy and over-predicts the amount of working-class crime.
• He sees deviance solely as an individual response, ignoring the group deviance of delinquent.
• Merton focuses on utilitarian crime, e.g. theft, ignoring crimes with no economic motive, e.g. vandalism.

Question 55

Subcultural theories of crimes
Status frustration
Three subcultures

Answer 55

Delinquent subcultures are groups whose norms and values are deviant. Subcultural theories apply Merton’s idea of a strain between goals and means. Their key idea is that these subcultures enable their members to gain status by illegitimate means.

Albert Cohen: status frustration
Cohen agrees with Merton that deviance results from the lower classes’ failure to achieve by legitimate means. However:
• Cohen sees subcultura deviance as a group response to failure, not just an individual one.
• He focuses on non-utilitarian crimes ones not for financial gain) such as vandalism.
Cohen notes that most working-class boys end up at the bottom of the schools official status hierarchy. Teachers may regard them as ‘thick’ and put them in the lower streams. As a result, they suffer from status frustration - a feeling of worthlessness.
The subculture offers a solution by providing them with an alternative status hierarchy in which they can win respect from their peers through delinquent actions. It inverts society’s values (turns them upside down): for example, society respects property, whereas the boys gain status in the group by vandalising property.

Cloward and Ohlin: three subcultures
Cloward and Ohlin note that different neighbourhoods give rise to different types of deviant subcultures:
• Criminal subcultures arise in areas where there is a longstanding professional criminal network. They select suitable youths for an ‘apprenticeship’ in utilitarian crime and a future criminal career.
• Conflict subcultures arise where the only criminal opportunities are within street gangs.
Violence provides a release for frustration and a source of status earned by winning territory from rival gangs.
• Retreatist subcultures are made up of dropouts who have failed in both the legitimate and the illegitimate opportunity structures. They are often based on drug use.

Strengths and limitations:

Strengths
• These theories show how subcultures perform a function for their members by offering solutions to the problem of failing to achieve mainstream goals legitimately.
• Cloward and Ohlin show how different types of neighbourhood give rise to different illegitimate opportunities and different subcultures (criminal, conflict and retreatist).
Limitations
• Like Merton, they ignore crimes of the wealthy and over-predict the amount of working-class crime.
• They assume everyone starts with mainstream goals and turns to a subculture when they fail to achieve them. But some people don’t share those goals in the first place; they may be attracted to crime for other reasons.
• Actual subcultures are not as clear-cut as Cloward and Ohlin claim. Some show characteristics of all three types: criminal, conflict and retreatist.

Question 56

Interactionism and labelling

Answer 56

Labelling theory states that no act is deviant or criminal in itself. It only becomes so when we create rules and apply them to others. For example, the act of smoking cannabis only ‘counts’ as a crime if society decides to make a law criminalising it and applies that law to cannabis smokers. Therefore to understand criminality, we must focus on how certain actions and people get labelled as criminal in the first place.

Differential enforcement of the law
Interactionists argue that social control agencies such as the police label certain groups as criminal.
This results in differential enforcement - where the law is enforced more against one group than against another. Piliavin and Briar found 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.

Labelling and the self-fulfilling prophecy
As Edwin Lemert argues, labelling is a cause of crime and deviance. By labelling certain people as deviant, society encourages them to become more so. He explains this by distinguishing between primary and secondary deviance:
• Primary deviance involves acts that have not been publicly labelled. They are often trivial and mostly go uncaught, such as travelling on public transport without paying. Those who commit these acts do not usually see themselves as criminals.
• Secondary deviance results from labelling. People may treat the offender solely in terms of his label, which becomes his master status or controlling identity. The individual is seen as, say, a thief, overriding all his other statuses, such as father, churchgoer, workmate etc.
As a result, the offender may be rejected by society and forced into the company of other criminals, joining a deviant subculture. Prison is an extreme example of this: the offender is excluded from normal society and placed with others who confirm his criminal identity, provide him with criminal role models and teach him criminal skills.
What has happened is a self-fulfilling prophecy: the individual has now become what the label said he was. The result is that further offending becomes more likely.

The deviance amplification spiral
A further example of the interactionist approach is the deviance amplification spiral. This is where the attempt to control deviance through a ‘crackdown’ leads to it increasing rather than decreasing, This prompts even greater attempts to control it and, in turn, yet more deviance, in. an escalating spiral.

Interactionism and crime statistics
interactionists reject the use of the crime statistics compiled by the police. They argue that the statistics measure what the police do rather than what criminals do.
For example, if the police stereotype working-class males as typical criminals, they will spend more time pursuing this group than middle-class white collar criminals. As a result, the statistics will be full of working-class males, simply because of the police’s stereotypes. Their statistics are therefore just a social construction, not a true measure of the amount of crime.

Strengths and limitations

Strengths
• Labelling theory shows that the law is not a fixed set of rules to be taken for granted, but something whose construction we need to explain.
• It shifts the focus onto how the police create crime by applying labels based on their stereotypes (typifications) of the ‘typical criminal’. This selective law enforcement may explain why the working class and minority groups are over-represented in the crime statistics.
• It shows how attempts to control deviance can trigger a deviance amplification spiral (e.g. in a moral panic) and create more deviance.
Limitations
• It wrongly implies that once someone is labelled, a deviant career is inevitable.

• Its emphasis on the negative effects of labelling gives offenders a ‘victim’ status, ignoring the real victims.
• It fails to explain why people commit primary deviance in the first place, before they are labelled.
• It doesn’t explain where the power to label comes from. It focuses on officials such as the police who apply the labels, rather than on the capitalist class who make the rules.
• It fails to explain why the labels are applied to certain groups (e.g. the working class) but not to others.

Question 57

The Marxist theory of crime and law

Answer 57

Capitalism causes crime - it’s the unequal structure of a capatlist society that shapes peoples behaviour
the ruling capitalist class or bourgeoisie, who own the means of production (businesses, banks, land etc.)
• the working class or proletariat, whose labour the capitalists exploit to make profit.
All the institutions of capitalist society work to maintain this inequality and exploitation. This is especially true of the law and criminal justice system. For Marxists, the law and its enforcement by the courts and police are simply a means of keeping the working class in their place.
The Marxist view of crime and the law has three main elements: capitalism causes crime; law making and law enforcement are biased; and crime and the law perform ideological functions.
Capitalism causes crime
For Marxists, crime is inevitable in capitalist society, because capitalism is a criminogenic (crime-causing) system. This is due to several reasons:
• The exploitation of the working class drives many people into poverty, meaning crime may be the only way to survive.
• Capitalism continually pushes consumer goods at people through advertising, resulting in utilitarian crimes (e.g. theft) to obtain them.
• Inequality causes feelings of alienation and frustration, resulting in non-utilitarian crimes (e.g. violence and vandalism).
• Capitalism causes crime among the capitalists themselves. Capitalism is a dog-eat-dog system and the profit motive promotes greed. This encourages capitalists to commit corporate crimes (eg. tax evasion, breaking health and safety laws) to gain an advantage.

Making and enforcing the law
Marxists see both law making and law enforcement as serving the interests of the capitalist class.
Law making William Chambliss argues that the laws are made to protect the private property of the rich. For example, there are laws against the homeless squatting empty houses, but no laws against the rich owning several houses. Very few laws challenge the unequal distribution of wealth.

Selective law enforcement Marxists agree with interactionists that the law is enforced selectively - against the working class but not the upper classes. White collar and corporate crimes of the rich are much less likely to be prosecuted than working-class ‘street’ crimes:
• Out of 200 companies who had broken safety laws, Carson found that only three were prosecuted.
• Despite the large number of deaths at work caused by employers’ negligence, there was only one successful prosecution of a UK firm in eight years for corporate homicide.
• Corporate crime is often punished less severely, for example with fines rather than jail - even though it often causes great harm.
Ideological functions of crime and the law
Marxists argue that ideas about crime and the law are an ideology - a set of ideas that conceal the inequality of capitalist society. For example:
• 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.
• This also shifts attention away from much more serious ruling-class crime.
• Some laws do benefit workers to a limited extent, e.g. health and safety laws. However, Pearce argues that these also benefit capitalism by giving it a ‘caring’ face.
These ideas encourage the working class to accept capitalism instead of replacing it with a more equal society.

Strengths and limitations
: Strengths
• It shows how poverty and inequality can cause working-class crime, and how capitalism promotes greed and encourages upper-class crime.
• It shows how both law-making and law enforcement are biased against the working class and in favour of the powerful. For example, corporate crime is rarely prosecuted.
Limitations
• It focuses on class and largely ignores the relationship between crime and other inequalities, such as gender and ethnicity.
• It over-predicts the amount of working-class crime: not all poor people turn to crime.
• Not all capitalist societies have high crime rates; e.g. Japan’s homicide rate is only about a fifth of the USA’s.

Question 58

Right realism

Answer 58

Right realists have a right wing, conservative political outlook. They see crime, especially street crime, as a growing problem. Right realists are mainly concerned with practical solutions to reduce crime. In their view, the best way to do so is through control and punishment, rather than by rehabilitating offenders or tackling causes such as poverty.
The causes of crime
Right realists reject the Marxist view that factors such as poverty are the cause of crime. Instead, they argue that crime is the product of three factors: biological differences between individuals; inadequate socialisation; and offending is a rational choice.

Biological differences between individuals
According to Wiison 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 (inborn).

Inadequate socialisation
Etective socialisation can reduce the chances of someone offending by teaching them self-control and correct values. Right realists see the nuclear family as the best agency of socialisation.
However, 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.
The underclass 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, because they do not see a man who works hard to support his family. 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.

offending is a rational choice
An important part of right realism is rational choice theory (RCT). This assumes that we are rational beings with free will. Deciding to commit a crime is a choice based on a rational calculation of the consequences: basically, weighing the risks/costs against the rewards/benefits.
If the rewards of crime appear to outweigh the risks, people will be more likely to offend.
Right realists argue that the crime rate is high 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.

Felson’s routine activity theory puts forward a similar idea. He argues that for a crime to occur, three factors are necessary: (i) a motivated offender, (ii) a suitable target (a victim or property) and the absence of a ‘capable guardian’ (e.g. a police officer or neighbour). Felson sees offenders as acting rationally, which is why the presence of a guardian is likely to deter them.
However, one problem is that if RCT is correct, offenders may act rationally and just move their attention to where the target is softer. This is called displacement - crime doesn’t decline, it just moves.

Strengths + weaknesses

• Several studies support RCT. Rettig gave students a scenario of an opportunity to commit a crime. He found that the degree of punishment determined whether they chose to commit the crime.
• Feldman found that people made rational decisions: if the rewards were high and risks low, they said the crime was worth committing.
• Bennett and Wright interviewed convicted burglars. The burglars considered the potential reward, difficulty of breaking in and risk of being caught. Risk was the most important factor influencing their decision to commit the crime.
• Right realism may explain some opportunistic petty crimes such as theft.
Limitations
• Rettig and Feldman’s studies were experiments; the results may not apply to real offenders.
• Bennett and Wright studied unsuccessful burglars. We don’t know if successful burglars also think in this way.
• Not all crimes are the result of rational decisions. Violent crimes are often impulsive. Offenders under the influence of drugs or alcohol may also be unlikely to calculate the risks and rewards before offending.

Question 59

Left realism

Answer 59

Left realists have a left wing, socialist political outlook. They see inequality in capitalist society as casset a minorities and women hit eatesin etime ate disadvantages areas site monkine.
of unemployment and deprivation. There is also evidence that the police take crimes against these groups less seriously. Left realists propose to reduce crime by making society fairer and more equal.
The causes of crime
Lea and Young identify three related causes of crime: relative deprivation, subculture and marginalisation.

Relative deprivation
For left realists, crime has its roots in relative deprivation - how deprived or badly off someone feels in relation to others. Lea and Young argue that two factors are increasing people’s sense of relative deprivation:
• On the one hand, the media continually pump out messages urging everyone to aspire to material possessions, promoting what Young calls ‘a culture hooked on Gucci, BMW, Nikes’.
• On the other hand, society is becoming more unequal due to cuts in benefits, unemployment, job insecurity and low pay.
At one extreme, many people now have no chance of ever affording the sort of lifestyle the media portray. At the other extreme, footballers, ‘fat cat’ bankers and others receive what many regard as undeservedly high rewards. Due to this perceived unfairness, some resort to crime to obtain what they feel should be rightfully theirs.

Young notes that there is now also ‘relative deprivation downwards’: people who are better off feel resentment against those who are actually worse off, who they see as scroungers. This may explain some hate crimes against powerless groups, for example asylum seekers or the disabled.

Subculture
For left realists, a subculture is a group’s way of solving the problem of relative deprivation. Some subcultures turn to crime to solve the problem.
Criminal subcultures share society’s materialistic goals, but because legitimate opportunities are blocked (for example, they are denied access to well paid jobs), they resort to crime. Inner city youths may find they are denied access to 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.
However, not all subcultures turn to crime. Some may turn to religion instead to find comfort and an explanation for their deprivation . This may encourage conformity rather than criminality.

Marginalisation
According to Lea and Young, marginalised groups are ones that lack organisations to represent their interests and lack clearly defined goals. For example, unemployed youth are a highly marginalised group.
Unlike workers, who have clear goals and organisations to give voice to their grievances jobless youths have no clear goals or organisations to represent them. Instead, they have a sense of powerlessness, frustration and resentment of injustice, which they express through crime such as violence and rioting.

Strengths and limitations:

• Left realism draws attention to the importance of poverty, inequality and relative deprivation as the underlying structural causes of crime
• It draws attention to the reality of street crime and its effects, especially on victims from deprived groups.
Limitations
• Henry and Milovanovic argue that left realism accepts the authorities’ definition of crime as just being the street crimes of the poor. It fails to explain white collar and corporate crime and ignores the harms done to the poor by the crimes of the powerful.
• It over-predicts the amount of working-class crime: not everyone who experiences relative deprivation and marginalisation turns to crime.
• Its focus on high-crime inner-city areas gives an unrepresentative view and makes crime appear a greater problem than it is.

Question 60

Surveillance theory

Answer 60

Surveillance involves monitoring people to control crime. Surveillance theories look at the methods by which surveillance is carried out, including technology such as CCTV, tagging and databases that produce profiles of individuals and groups.

Foucault: the Panopticon
Foucault argues that in modern society, we are increasingly controlled through self-surveillance, through what he calls ‘disciplinary power’. He illustrates this by reference to a prison design known as the Panopticon (meaning ‘all-seeing’).
In the Panopticon, prisoners’ cells are visible to the guards from a central viewing point (e.g. a watchtower) but prisoners cannot see the guaras. Therefore, not knowing if they are being watched, the prisoners must constantly behave as if they are. In this way, surveillance turns into self-surveillance and discipline becomes self-discipline: control is invisible, inside the prisoner’s own mind.
Foucault argues that other institutions (e.g. mental hospitals, army barracks, workplaces and schools) have followed this pattern. Disciplinary power and self-surveillance has now infiltrated every part of society and reaches every individual.

Synoptic surveillance
Mathiesen argues that as well as surveillance from above, as in the Panopticon, we now have surveillance from below. He calls this the ‘Synopticon’ - where everybody watches everybody.
For example, motorists and cyclists can monitor the behaviour of others by using dashboard or helmet cameras. This may warn other road users that they are under surveillance and result in them exercising self-discipline.

Actuarial justice and profiling
The term ‘actuarial’ comes from the insurance industry; an actuary is someone who calculates the risk of certain events happening. For example, what is the likelihood of your home being burgled in the next 12 months?
Feeley and Simon see actuarial justice as a new form of surveillance. Its aim is to predict and prevent future offending. It uses statistical information to reduce crime by compiling profiles of likely offenders.

Strengths and weaknesses:

Strengths
• Foucault’s work has stimulated research into surveillance and disciplinary power - especially into the idea of an ‘electronic Panopticon’ that uses modern technologies to monitor us.
• Researchers have identified other forms of surveillance, including actuarial justice and profiling.
Limitations
• Foucault exaggerates the extent of control. For example, Goffman shows how some inmates of prisons and mental hospitals resist controls.
• Surveillance may not change people’s behaviour as Foucault claims. For example, studies show that CCTV may fail to prevent crime because offenders often take no notice of it

Question 61

4.1?

Answer 61

assess the use of criminological theories in informing policy development

Question 62

biological theories

Question 63

biochemical processes?

Answer 63

mutiple biochemical processes and factors have been linked to criminality such as the effects of the male sex hormone testosterone, substace abuse, deficiences in diets- this has led to policies mostly in the for of individualies treatement programmes for offenders.
biochemical process
drug treatments: used in some situations to treat ot control criminal or antisocial behaviour
alchol abuse: can trigger violent behaviour - the drug antabuse is used in the aversion therapy to traet alcholism - it works by preventing the body from breaking down alchol immmediatlry causing very unpleasent hangover sypmtoms.
heroin addiction; methadone is used to treat addicts and helpes prevent withdraw symptoms.
sex offenders: stilbestrol- a female hormone that surpresses testosterrone as a way of reducing mens sex drive - can have serious side effects
managing prisioners: keepin risioners calm with various of drugs
diet - can be modified to match peoples behaviours
surgery: alter peoples brains or bodies to prevent them from offending
lobotomy: the process of cutting the connection between the frontal lobes of the brain and the thalamus p- used too treat paranoid schizopherinai

Question 64

what is crowd control and public order offences ?

Answer 64

in addition to tthe biochemical process other policies may use methods aimed at controlling groups by using chemical substaces
example: tear gas may be used to control crowds of rioters

Question 65

Genetic theories: eugenics?

Answer 65

Genetic theories of criminality have argued that the tendency to criminality is transmitted by inheriting a ‘criminal gene’. The idea that we can identify such a gene is now discredited but in the early 20th century it was associated with a movement known as eugenics.
Eugenicists were obsessed with the fear that the human race was in danger of ‘degenerating’ because the poor were breeding at a faster rate than the higher classes. As a result, they were passing on supposedly inferior genes for low intelligence, insanity, poverty and criminality more quickly than the higher classes were passing on their ‘superior’ genes, thus lowering the average intelligence and moral quality of the population.

Question 66

What is compulsory steralisation

Answer 66

Eugenicists argued that the ‘genetically unfit’ should therefore be prevented from breeding.
This led them to favour policies such as the compulsory sterilisation of ‘defectives’ such as criminals (since they believed criminality to be hereditary) and those with mental illnesses or learning difficulties.
Eugenicists set up pressure groups to campaign for their policies, which were introduced in several countries. For example, in 1927 the US Supreme Court ruled that it was legal to compulsorily sterilise the ‘unfit’, including those with learning difficulties, ‘for the protection and health of the state’. Other eugenic policies have included forced abortions and restrictions on the right to marry.

Question 67

What js the nazi. Racial purity policies

Answer 67

The most extreme case of eugenic policies was that of Nazi Germany (1933-45). The Nazis strongly favoured such policies as a means of ‘purifying’ the ‘Aryan master race’ by eliminating those they deemed unfit to breed. Initially they targeted the physically and mentally disabled, with 400,000 people sterilised against their will and 70,000 killed under the Nazis’ euthanasia policy.
The Holocaust Ultimately, eugenic policies became part of the justification for the Nazis’ genocide of supposedly ‘inferior’ races during the Second World War. These included Jews, of whom at least 6 million were killed, and Gypsies/Roma, of whom up to 1.5 million were murdered. In addition, many thousands of others defined as ‘deviants’ were killed, including gays and lesbians, drug users, alcoholics and the homeless.

Question 68

Individualistic theories

Question 69

What is psychoanalysis

Answer 69

Psychoanalysis is based on Freud’s theory of personality. This highlights the unconscious conflicts between the id and the superego
Psychoanalysis sees a weak superego as a cause of criminality, since the individual lacks a moral force to curb their selfish instincts. A weak superego can result from inadequate early socialisation of the child.

Crime control
Treatment is very lengthy . It involves bringing these unconscious conflicts and repressed emotions into the conscious mind so they can be resolved. To access the unconscious mind, Freud used hypnosis and free association, where the analyst gives the patient a word and they respond with the first word that comes into their mind.

Aichhorn applied psychoanalytic ideas to policies for treating young offenders at the institution he supervised. Because they had uncaring or absent parents, they had failed to develop loving relationships. Normal socialisation had not taken place and so they had not developed a superego.

This is similar to Bowlby’s idea that maternal deprivation can cause criminality.
Aichhorn rejected the harsh environments of young offenders’ institutions at the time and treated the children by providing a happy and pleasant environment that would make development of the superego possible.

Is it effective?
Not very effective
Only 44% of psychoanalysis patients show improvement
Its costly and time consuming so its never been used on a large scale
It gives the powe too define what us notmal and abnormal

Question 70

What is operant learning and token economies?

Answer 70

• it states that criminal behaviour is learned through reinforment anf punisment
  Crime control:
  A token ecmony works by an institution draws up a list of desirable behaviours and when the offender acts in a desirable way they earn a token, tokens then can be exchanged for rewards and through this selective reinforcement good behaviour becomes more likeable

Is it effective?
It shows that in the institution the brhaviour will change because they have the rewardd happening and all the time but once they leave because they arent getting this rewards they may turn back
- some institutions took it too far by taking away drink and food

Question 71

What is averison therapy and eysencks theory

Answer 71

Aversion therapy applies Eysenck’s personality theory to the treatment of sex offenders. Eysenck states that criminals tend to be strongly extravert and neurotic. This makes them harder to condition because they are more resistant to learning through punishment.
Conditioning therefore needs to be ‘stronger’ in order to change the sex offender’s behaviour, as follows:
• Offenders are asked to think about an unacceptable sexual fantasy until they are aroused.
• A strongly aversive stimulus (one the individual would choose to avoid) is then administered, such as an electric shock or a nausea-inducing drug.
• The procedure is repeated until the offender comes to associate the deviant arousal and the stimulus. The aim is to stop the thoughts and thus stop the offending behaviour.
Is it effective?
Aversion therapy has had very limited success, usually only short term, and its use in attempting to ‘cure’ gay people has also been criticised as a human rights abuse

Question 72

What is cognitive theoried and cbt

Answer 72

Cognitive theories have been applied to a range of offender treatment programmes known as cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT).
Cognitive theories state that our cognitions (thought processes) shape our behaviour, including offending behaviour. Offenders have ‘distorted cognitions’ that lead them to offend. CBT programmes aim to change offenders’ thoughts and attitudes so as to change their behaviour.
Below are two examples of CBT programmes in the UK.

Think First
Think First is a programme of group and one-to-one sessions for repeat offenders on probation.
It aims to enable offenders to control their thoughts, feelings and behaviour. It teaches problem-solving skills, consequential thinking (what will be consequences of my course of action, for me and others?), decision making and seeing things from the other’s point of view (perspective taking). It also provides social interaction and moral reasoning training.

Is it effective?

Those completing the programme are 30% less likely to be re-convicted than offenders who receive an alternative community sentence. However, the non-completion rate is often high.
Aggression Replacement Training (ART)
ART is a programme for violent or aggressive offenders. It involves:
• Interpersonal skills training, e.g. through role play.
• Anger control techniques, dealing with emotions and providing offenders with alternative courses of action instead of violence.
• Moral reasoning training that challenges their attitudes by confronting them with moral dilemmas to consider.
Is it effective? Evaluations mostly show lower re-conviction rates. However, some evaluations have found that although thinking skills improved, behaviour did not.

What works?

Not all CBT programmes are equally successful or equally suitable. For example, there would be little point putting a non-violent burglar on an ART programme.
The Home Office’s ‘what works’ policy aims to ensure that CBT programmes actually reduce offending and so it only accredits ones that meet certain criteria:
• A clear plan and proven methods for altering offenders’ behaviour.
• Careful matching of offenders to the right programme, in terms of their offence, risk of re-offending and learning abilities
• Targeting the risk factors that lead to offending.
A successful programme must show that it improves offenders’ skills and their everyday behaviour and reduces their re-offending.

Question 73

Sociological theories influencing policies

Question 74

What is merton and subculttal theories

Answer 74

For Merton, in America, the main social goal is to gain wealth.
However, the poor find their opportunity to do so legitimately is blocked. Many adapt to this by innovating using illegal means such as theft.
Subcultural theorists (such as Albert Cohen, and Cloward and Ohlin) also argue that crime is caused by blocked opportunities. Different subcultures cope with this by becoming professional - criminals, joining gangs or dropping out.
Crime control and punishment policies
Merton’s strain theory provides a basis for crime control and reduction policies. Society’s structure could be made more equal in these ways:
• Policies to tackle poverty, Better welfare benefits, wages and job security would reduce crime by giving everyone a more equal chance of achieving success by legal means.
• Equal opportunities in school Treating working-class pupils equally would reduce their failure rate, making them less likely to suffer status frustration and join delinquent subcultures.
• Education in prison Half of UK prisoners have a reading age of 11. Better education in prisons would help inmates gain skills to get a good job and go straight.

Are these policies effective?
Evidence shows that anti-poverty policies have a positive effect. Societies that spend more on welfare jail fewer people.
Those with greater inequality, like the USA, have higher crime rates.

Question 75

What is labelling

Answer 75

Labelling theory argues that much crime is the result of a self-fulfilling prophecy. By labelling someone as criminal, we risk them living up to their label and committing further, more serious crimes. Labelling theory has influenced the development of several crime control policies.

Decriminalisation;

Decriminalising minor offences such as possession of cannabis would mean many fewer young people were labelled as criminals. A criminal record can prevent them getting a job and lead to secondary deviance

Diversion policies
These aim to keep an offender out of the justice system so as to avoid labelling them as criminals. Some diversion policies are informal, like when police use their discretion not to charge someone. Others are formal, such as requiring an offender to attend an anger management programme to avoid prosecution.

Reintegrative shaming

Braithwaite identifies two types of ‘shaming’ or labelling:
• Disintegrative shaming, where both the crime and the criminal are labelled as bad and the offender is excluded from society. This can push them into secondary deviance.
• Reintegrative shaming labels the act but not the actor - as if to say, ‘he has done a bad thing’, rather than ‘he is a bad person’.
‘. It avoids stigmatising the offender as evil, while still
encouraging them to repent and encouraging others to admit them back into society.
Are these policies effective?
Evidence shows crime control policies based on labelling theory can deal successfully with minor offences and young offenders. By avoiding labelling people as criminals and keeping them out of the justice system, they avoid pushing individuals into a deviant career.

Question 76

What is right realism

Answer 76

Right realists see criminals as making a rational choice to commit crime. Their view has led to three main crime control and punishment policies.

-Situational crime prevention
SCP policies aim to reduce the opportunities for crime by increasing the risks or difficulties of committing the crime and by reducing the rewards. SCP is based on rational choice theory: the idea that offenders act rationally, weighing up the risks and rewards of a crime opportunity.
SCP includes ‘target hardening’ measures, such as locking cars, employing security guards and re-shaping the environment to ‘design crime out’ of an area.

Is sco effective?
1.displacement.
If criminals are rational actors, then when they find a target too hard to crack, they will simply look for a softer one. For example, they may commit crime at a different time or place, use a different method or choose a different target. This may result in more vulnerable targets being victimised more because other targets have been hardened.

• Environmental crime prevention
  Wilson and Kelling’s ‘broken windows’ theory argues that a disorderly neighbourhood sends out the message that nobody cares. This attracts offenders, who calculate that their activities there will not be investigated. Serious crime will increase and law-abiding citizens will move out if they can.
  Wilson and Kelling argue for a twofold policy:
  • An environmental improvement strategy All signs of disorder must be tackled promptly - graffiti removed, broken windows repaired etc.
  • A zero tolerance policing (ZTP) strategy - taking a tough, ‘zero tolerance’ stance towards all crime, even the most trivial. Police should concentrate on tackling ‘quality of life’ offences, such as aggressive begging, prostitution and vandalism.

Is ztp effective?
-crime fell after ztp was introduced in nee york in the 1990/ but this couldve been other fsactors
-Males found that ZTP curfews can increase juvenile crime - by removing law-abiding youths from the streets, they leave them emptier and favourable to crime.
-ZTP can lead to targeting of ethnic minorities due to police racism, and to confrontations due to heavy-handed military policing
-ZTP and SCP fail to tackle structural causes of crime such as inequality. Also, they focus on low-level street crime, ignoring the crimes of the powerful: white collar and state crime.

• penal poplulism and imprisonment

Right realists argue that criminals make a rational choice to offend by weighing up the costs and benefits of offending. Higher costs such as tougher penalties should therefore deter criminals.
‘Prison works’ From the 1990s governments began to take the view that tougher penalties were needed, arguing that ‘prison works’. In the right realist view, prison has two functions:
• Incapacitation Criminals become incapable of harming the public - jail takes them ‘out of circulation’
• Deterrence Criminals think twice before offending when they see tough punishments handed out.
Politicians believed tough penalties were popular with the public and so this policy came to be known as ‘penal populism’. (For example, in 1997 the Conservatives brought in the Crime Act, which introduced mandatory minimum sentences for repeat offenders)

-automatic life sentences for a second serious sexual or violent offence
-a minimum of seven years for a third Class A drug trafficking conviction
- a minimum of three years for a third domestic burglary conviction.

Tony Blair’s New Labour government came to power in 1997. Promising to be ‘tough on crime and tough on the causes of crime’, they introduced measures such as ASBOs and curfews.
Penal populism has led to rising numbers in jail, from 45,000 in 1993 to 80,000 by 2021.
England and Wales imprison a bigger proportion of their population than any other Western European country. Meanwhile, in 2020, there were 76 suicides, five homicides, 65,000 incide of self-harm and 9,800 assaults on staff.

Question 77

Is prison effective?

Answer 77

Incapacitation: prisions only may work temporarily, offenders cant commit crimes against the public but this doesnt stop anything jn the prision
Rehabilitation: overcrowding and budget cuts means many prisions lack access too eduaction and normal trainibg skills
Recidivism: 48% of adults are re convicted within a year realease
Deterance: studies show that it doesn’t acctually work

Question 78

What is left realism

Answer 78

Left realists see the root cause of crime as an unequal and unfair social structure. Their theory has been applied via three main policies to reduce crime.
-Policies to reduce inequality
Left realists call for major structural changes to tackle discrimination, inequality of opportunity and unfairness of rewards, and to provide good jobs and housing for all. This would reduce relative deprivation - the main cause of crime.
-Democratic policing
The police are losing public support, especially in poorer areas, where they are widely distrusted. Their flow of information dries up and they have to rely on military policing, such as stop and searches. This creates further loss of cooperation, meaning they cannot tackle crime effectively.
To win back public support, the police must involve local communities in deciding their priorities. They must focus on crimes that victimise the disadvantaged, such as domestic violence and hate crimes, rather than offences such as possession of soft drugs.
There has been some success for left realist policing policies:
1. Neighbourhood policing and police community support officers have been introduced to build better relationships with communities.
2. Many forces now make cannabis possession a low priority crime.
3. Domestic violence and hate crime are now a higher priority.
-A multi agency approach

Left realists argue that crime control must involve many other agencies apart from the police: schools, youth services, housing departments, social services, the probation service and NHS.
-Local councils can improve facilities for young people to provide alternatives to crime.
-No Knives, Better Lives is an example of a approach aimed at reducing knife crime. It involves a wide range of agencies, including schools, local councils’ leisure and youth services, and voluntary organisations as well as the police.

-New Labour policies
Some of the policies advocated by left realists reflect the approach of the New Labour governments from 1997 to 2010, which aimed to be ‘tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime’. For example, Labour invested in improvements to deprived neighbourhoods through the
Communities that Care’ programme - an example of being tough on the causes of crime.

Question 79

Ehat is serveillance theories?

Answer 79

Surveillance theories have influenced two major crime control policies: CCTV and profiling.
What js cctv
CCTV is a modern form of the Panopticon: a surveillance system in which prison guards can observe inmates without the prisoners knowing whether they were being watched. Foucault argues that this leads prisoners to monitor and regulate their own behaviour.

Is CCTV effective?
Like the Panopticon, CCTV depends on criminals believing they are being watched and being deterred by this. Gill and Loveday found that very few criminals were put off by CCTV. Norris found CCTV has little effect other than displacement.
CCTV has had some successes, such as the identification of David Copeland, a right-wing terrorist convicted of a nail-bombing campaign. However, cameras rarely catch someone ‘in the act’. Critics suggest that CCTV’s real function may be to reassure the public, even though it makes little difference to their security.
-Stereotyping Norris and Armstrong found CCTV operators using racist stereotypes, singling out Black youths for surveillance.

Question 80

What is a serveillance creep?

Answer 80

Technology was introfuced for on purpose gets extented to another

Question 81

What is profiing

Answer 81

Profiling involves using data to draw up a statistical picture of likely offenders, often using official crime statistics to do so. Individuals can be profiled according to specific characteristics to decide what degree of risk they pose.

Is it effective?
Can be discriminatory
The police act on black youths more than ither
Any black youths actually offending will get caught alot more then aby ptheer group
Black youths wull be over represented in any statistics

Question 82

4.3?

Answer 82

Discuss how campaigns affect policy making

Question 83

Newspaper campaigns to affext policy making?

Answer 83

Sarahs law
The year and a day rule

Question 84

What is sarahs law and how did the newspapers help?

Answer 84

Sarahs law was the result of a successful campaign too allow carerrs too ask the police if a convicted sex offender has contact with a specific child. The campaign came about following the abduction and murder in July 2000 of 8-year-old Sarah Payne in West Sussex by Roy Whiting. Whiting had been convicted in 1995 of abducting and indecently assaulting another 8-year-old girl.

What role did the newspapers play?
The news of the worlds rule

The campaign for Sarah’s Law was championed by the News of the World newspaper and backed by Sarah’s parents, who had been convinced from the start that a sex offender had murdered their daughter. This was confirmed when Whiting was convicted of the crime in 2001 and it was revealed that he had a previous conviction for a sexual offence against a child.
The newspaper’s support was central to the campaign’s success. In July 2000, it ‘named and shamed’ fifty people it claimed were pedophiles. The paper promised to continue until it had revealed the identity of every pedophile in Britain.
Success The campaign eventually succeeded in persuading the government to introduce the Child Sex Offender Disclosure Scheme throughout England and Wales in 2011. However, it should be noted that while anyone can ask the police if someone in contact with a child has a record of child sexual offences, the police are not obliged to disclose information and will only do so if they judge that the child is at risk of harm and the disclosure is necessary to safeguard the child.

Question 85

The year and the day rule?

Answer 85

Michael Gibson was 20 when he was assaulted by David Clark in Darlington town centre in April
1992. Michael died after being in a coma for
22 months. Clark could only be charged with grievous bodily harm and was jailed for two years. He was free before Michael died.
At the time, the ‘year and a day’ rule existed.
It was a law dating back to 1278 . The rule said that if victims of an assault lived for a year and a day, their attackers could not be tried for manslaughter or murder.

The Northern Echo’s role:

Michael’s mother Pat sought to change the law. In her support,
Northern Echo newspaper launched the ‘Justice for Michael’ campaign, urging its readers to sign a petition
demanding that the year and a day rule be scrapped. With Pat Gibson’s permission, the Echo published a front-page photo of Michael in a coma in his hospital bed. Thousands of readers signed the petition.
Success In 1994, the local MP, Alan Milburn, introduced a bill into the House of Commons to scrap the year and a day rule, but it was narrowly defeated. However, following the delivery of the Northern Echo’s petition to the Law Commission, a bill was passed by Parliament to become the 1996 Law Reform Act.
The newspaper’s role was vital in achieving success by mobilising public support. As its editor said, ‘people were getting away with murder because the law was an ass. Newspapers have to do what they can to bring the law up to date.’ However, because of the work of Michael’s mother, we can also see this as a successful individual campaign.

Question 86

Individual campaigns to affext policy making

Answer 86

Clares law
Changing in the double jeopardy law

Question 87

Clares law?

Answer 87

In 2009, 36-year-old Clare Wood of Salford in Greater Manchester was beaten, raped and strangled, and her body set on fire by George Appleton, with whom she had previously been having a relationship. The relationship had ended in 2008 but Appleton had continued to harass her.
Unbeknown to Clare, Appleton had a history of convictions for violence against women, including a five-year prison sentence for holding an ex-girlfriend at knifepoint. He also had convictions for repeated harassment and threats, including four non-molestation orders relating to other women, and he had served six months in prison for breaching one of these orders.
After killing Clare, Appleton went on the run and was later found hanged.

The domestic violence disclosure scheme?

Michael’s campaigning finally bore fruit in 2013, when the government introduced a pilot scheme in four police areas. Following its success, in 2014 the Domestic Violence Disclosure Scheme (DVDS) was rolled out across all 43 police forces in England and Wales.
The DVDS sets out two procedures the police can use in disclosing information about an individual’s previous violent and abusive offending to their partner:
• The right to ask allows a member of the public to apply to the police to disclose information. They can ask about their own partner or the partner of someone they know.
• The right to know allows the police to disclose information to protect a potential victim, even without having been asked to do so.
However, the police are not obliged to disclose information and they will meet with other safeguarding agencies (such as probation, prison or social services) to decide whether disclosure is necessary to protect the person in question. They also decide who should receive the information and they will set up a safety plan for the potential victim.

Operations of the scheme?

Since the scheme began, there have been many disclosures. For example, in 2018, 6,496 ‘right to ask’ requests were made and 2,575 were granted - an average of 40%.

However, there are big differences between police forces. For example, Cumbria Police disclose information in 96% of cases while Bedfordshire Police did so in only 7%.
Critics say that this is ‘justice by geography’. Part of the reason for such differences has been different levels of knowledge and training for the scheme in different forces.

Question 88

The chnage in the double jeoparfy law

Answer 88

the double jeopardy law is a basic principle of English common law that has existed for around 800 years. It stops people being tried again for a crime of which they have been acquitted. This prevents injustice by stopping the state persecuting someone by repeatedly re-prosecuting them until they manage to secure a conviction.
However, the rule can lead to injustice where new evidence indicates that someone previously acquitted was in fact guilty. This was so in the case of the murder of Ann Ming’s daughter, Julie Hogg.

Question 89

The cases involved?

Answer 89

The case of Billy Dunlop
Julie was murdered in 1989 and Billy Dunlop was charged with the crime. However, after two successive juries failed to reach a verdict, Dunlop was acquitted. By convention, if two juries fail to reach a verdict, prosecutors drop the case.
In 1998, Dunlop was jailed for a savage attack on a former lover and while in prison admitted to a prison officer that he had also murdered Julie Hogg. The officer reported his admission and Dunlop was convicted of having committed perjury at his trial for Julie’s murder. He was sentenced to six years’ imprisonment for this but no action could be taken in relation to the murder itself because of the double jeopardy rule.

Ann mins campaign:

Wishing to see Dunlop convicted of her daughter’s murder, Ann Ming campaigned for a change to the law, lobbying politicians and using the press, TV and radio to publicise the case.
The 2003 Criminal Justice Act was the result of Ann Ming’s successful campaign. It permitted certain serious crimes to be re-tried. These include murder, manslaughter, rape, kidnapping, major drug offences and armed robbery. However, the re-trial can only take place if ‘new and compelling evidence emerges and if the Director of Public Prosecutions gives the go-ahead. Only one re-trial is permitted.

The stephan lawrence case:

Calls for a change in the rule were also supported by Sir William Macpherson in his report on the 1993 murder of Stephen Lawrence. Police mishandling of the investigation had resulted in a failed prosecution of three of the five original suspects in 1996. Subsequently, new DNA evidence emerged to link one of the three, Gary Dobson, to the killing. Dobson was re-tried and convicted of the murder, along with another suspect, David Norris, who had not been tried in 1996.

Question 90

Preassure group campaigns to affect policy making

Answer 90

Protection against stalking
INQUEST

Question 91

Protection against stalking

Answer 91

2011 Protection Against Stalking (PS) launched a campaign to introduce a new law making stalking a specific offence. At that point, the existing 1997 anti-harassment law did not refer specifically to stalking. One estimate puts the number of victims at 120,000 a year.
In some cases, stalking leads to physical attacks and even deaths. Claire Bernal was shot dead by her stalker in 2005 while she was at work in a London department store. Her killer had been due in court the following week for harassing her.
Attitude of the justice system
The way the police were dealing with stalking was inadequate and haphazard. They lacked a clear policy and investigations were often left to individual officers’ discretion. Victims were not being taken seriously and there were only 70 prosecutions in ten years under the 1997 Act.
The campaign
PAS concluded that the existing law was not fit for purpose. Supported by Napo, the probation officers union, PAS set up an independent parliamentary inquiry, persuading MPs and peers (members of the House of Lords) from all parties to serve on it.
The inquiry lasted several months, hearing evidence from victims and their relatives (including mothers whose daughters had been killed by stalkers), academic experts, lawyers, police and probation officers. The inquiry heard about the intimidation, fear, and psychological and physical harm stalkers inflict and about the inadequate response of the authorities.
Success The inquiry’s report was published in February 2012 with the support of 60 MPs and peers, the Police Federation and the Magistrates’ Association. PAS were able to get support from MPs to include an amendment to a bill that was going through Parliament. This became the Protection of Freedoms Act in April 2012. It made stalking a criminal offence.
Reasons for success
The campaign succeeded in getting the law changed for several reasons. The inquiry allowed the voices of victims to be heard, as well as those from frontline practitioners in support organisations.
They gained support from a wide range of important organisations and groups. They kept the campaign in the
public eye through press releases to the media.
They lobbied individual mps and perrs who could sctuwlly change the law

Question 92

INQUEST?

Answer 92

The work of the pressure group INQUEST focuses on state-related deaths, such as those. of people in police custody, prisons, immigration detention centres and psychiatric care. It has been involved in many inquests, including deaths in the Grenfell Tower fire, the 1989 Hillsborough disaster and the police shooting of Mark Duggan that preceded the 2011 London riots.
INQUEST campaigns to ensure that investigations into deaths treat bereaved people with dignity and respect. It is involved in a range of activities:
Casework INQUEST carries out specialist casework to support bereaved people so they can establish the truth about a death that has occurred while someone was in the care of the state.
Accountability INQUEST aims to ensure that state institutions are held accountable when they fail to safeguard those in their care.

Changing policies INQUEST aims to spread the lessons learnt from investigations in order to prevent further deaths. It gathers evidence from its casework, conducts research and uses its information to press public bodies to change their policies.
Examples of successful campaigns for policy changes by INQUEST include:
• Setting up the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC), which investigates serious complaints and allegations of misconduct against the police.
• Extending the 2007 Corporate Manslaughter Act to cover deaths in the custody of public authorities (previously it only covered businesses).
INQUEST continues to campaign for changes, including:
• Equal funding for bereaved families at inquests into state-related deaths. Legal costs for public bodies at inquests are funded by the state but families have to pay their own costs.
• A ‘Hillsborough Law’ to make it a crime for senior police officers to cover up institutional and individual failures.