Why Would Somone Do A Crime Flashcards
Durkheim (Functionalist View On Crime)
Crime is Inevitable
Boundary Maintenance
Adaptation and Change.
Evaluation :
What’s the right amount of crime
Crime can alienate individuals
Davis (Functionalist View On Crime)
Crime As a safety valve, prostitution to release frustration.
Merton (Functionalist View On Crime)
Strain Theory , caused through by failure to achieve mainstream goals through legitimate means.
E.G The American Dream.
Evaluation
Only explains utilitarian Crime and assumes a value consensus.
Responses to Strain (Functionalist View On Crime)
Conformist - Accept Goals and means
Innovation - accept goals not legitimate means
Ritualism - Reject goals, conform to means.
Retreatsim - Reject means and goals
Rebellion - Reject the goals and means with their own.
Cohen (Functionalist View On Crime)
Status Frustration in WC boys in schools, Turn to delinquent subcultures.
Explains non-utilitarian crime.
Coward + Ohlin
Criminal subcultures
Conflict subcultures
Retreatist subculture
Matza
Drift theory - Delinquents drift in and out of deviance
Becker
Argues crime is a social construct
Actions labelled as deviant are determined by society
Those who are labelled are labelled based upon gender,age,ethnicity
Pilivan+Briar
Found police make decisions based upon physical attributes.
Cicourel
Police typofications = Focus on certain Groups
Negotiation of Justice
Lemert
Primary deviance = Acts that have not been labelled as deviant
Secondary deviance = Deviant acts that have been labelled = Indivual with master status of criminal = struggle to gain employment = join shadow economies
Young
Deviance amplification spiral, trying to control deviance = More deviance
Drug takers in Notting Hill
Cohen
Folk Devils, moral enterpreneurs, Moral panics, shows how media labelling = increased police behaviour
Braithwaite
Labelling Good !
Reintegrate and disintegrating shaming
Durkheim (Positivist)
Stats are social facts, found that suicide increase during rapid social change, rates varied with social group.
Variables affecting suicide
Religious affiliation
Level of education
Urbanisation
Level of integration !
Douglas (Interpretivist)
Relationships between social actors = Reluctancy to record suicide
Low rates of suicide can be argued to be a cause of covering up
Argued cause of death should be via the meaning of the deceased family members using qualitative.
Atkinson (Ethnomethodlogy)
Suicide verdicts are a social construct, Studied danish and English coroners, Danes decided more suicide due to lower stigma
Lemert
Some individuals don’t fit into decant groups and are labelled “odd” = mental illness and labelled as a mental patient thus paranoia being a SFP
Goffman
Institutionalised individuals = loss of identity due to master status of “Inmate”
Study of asylums
Marxists on Crime
Capitalism is criminogenic = W/C commit utilitarian crimes to get consumer goods.
Alienation causes non utilitarian crimes due to frustration.
Law making benefits R/C
Chambliss
Law protects private property = cornerstone of capitalist economy
Snider
Capitalist states are reluctant to pass laws that regulate activities of business or threaten their profits.
Gordon
Dog eat dog society due to completion in capitalist society = corporate crimes.
Selective enforcement
Certain groups are targeted in the CJS, police tend to ignore crimes of the powerful.
Pearce Idealogical Functions of Law
Laws give capitalism a caring face, create false class consciousness.
Health and safety laws but lack of enforcement.
Due to selective law enforcement, crimes seem to be a W/C phenomenon. Increasing divide as other W/C blame criminals for inequality/Labelling.
Taylor Et Al
Seems Marxism as economically deterministic, sees crime as a meaningful action and a conscious choice by the actors.
Criminals are not passive puppets and their behaviour is shaped by capitalism.
Taylor Et Al (Fully social theory of deviance)
To understand crime you must.
Take into account wider origins of the deviant act
The act itself
Effects of labelling.
Left Realist = Romantises W/C criminals as “Robin hood” figures.
Burke - Too general and Idealistic.
Marxist Subcultures
Cohen - Skinheads react to decline in Manual Labour via clothes of workers
CCCS - Youth subcultures develop as a form of resistance against capitalist inequality.
Hebdige - Punks, resist via shocking establishment with fashion.
However it is usually commercialised.
Reiman and Leighton
Higher persecution for “street crimes” rather than White collar crimes.
Crimes committed by higher social classes = more forgiving view from CJS.
Sutherland
Occupational crime
Corporate crime
Pearce and Tombs
Defention of corporate crime
An illegal act or omission, that is the result of Deliverate decisions intended to benefit a business.
Tombs
Types of corporate crimes
Financial
Against the consumer
Against the employee
Crimes against the environment
State corporate crimes
Carrabine
Abuse of Trust
Why are corporate crimes less seen
The media = Limited coverage
Lack of political will
Crimes are complex
Under reported
Internal dealing
Box (Strain) (Corporate crimes)
If a business cannot reach the goal of maximising profits by legal means they will use illegal
Sutherland
Differential association, deviance is behaviour learned by others.
Sutherland
Differential association, deviance is behaviour learned by others.
Nelken
Professionals have the power to avoid labelling/can afford lawyers.
Matza
Techniques of neutralisation.
Easier to justify a corporate crime if it’s an order by a boss.
Katz
Edge work, individuals commit crimes for pleasure and like the risk of getting caught.
Relative deprivation Strain Theory
M/c people can experience relative deprivation to other People = Utilitarian crime.
Hernstein and Wilson (Right Realism)
Biological differences = traits such as aggression and low impulse control.
Low intelligence also causes crime.
Eval = Why do Asians commit crime ?
Murray (Right Realism)
Poor Socilaisation due to lone parent families/stray from nuclear family has created underclass of idle young men.
Due to lack of a control and disicpline they turn to shadow economies.
Clarke (Right Realism)
Rational choice theory, criminals outweigh benefits and costs in order to justify committing a crime.
However, overstates intelligence of criminals.
Right Realist methods of tackling crime
Target Hardening
Zero tolerance Policing
Wilson and Kelling = Broken window thesis.
Lea and Young (Left realism)
Crime occurs due to
Relative deprivation
Subcultures
Marginalisation
Lea + Young Tackling crime
Polcicing and Control = Better relationships with local communities
Tackling structural Inequality = reducing poverty.
