CRIME AND DEVIANCE

FUNCTIONALISTS
1. Crime is inevitable: Durkheim said not everyone will buy into society's values and norms. There will always be people who deviate from norms and beliefs.
  1. Durkheim said that crime in society isn’t genetically produced, but is natural in society. However, he did say that too much crime was dangerous in a society, and this is an idea Merton developed.
2. Crime works as safety valve: Cohen said that “prostitution performs such a safety valve function without threatening the institution of the family”, this is because he believed this crime of prostitution could relieve the stress in a discrete way without damaging the rest of the clients life.
3. Crime works as a warning device: Clinard said this is because the crime indicates that there is an aspect of society that is malfunctioning. So the crime draws attention to the problem within society, which can then be fixed.
4. Durkheim and anomie:
  1. 1. Conformity – Members of society conform to the norms of the rest of society (in this case the need for material goods) and try to achieve success through the normal means (work hard at school etc.)
  2. 2. Innovation – People who feel that they cannot possibly achieve through the normal route try new ways of making money, in most cases this is a life of crime
  3. 3. Ritualism – People who feel they can’t achieve because they have few job prospects, but also can’t turn to innovation might lower their goals and aspirations. This is considered deviant because they have rejected society’s norms and values by creating their own lower goals.
  4. 4. Retreatism – People who cannot possibly earn success and feel there is no way to do so might retreat from society, or ‘drop out’. They resign to failure and often turn to alcohol or drugs abuse.
  5. 5. Rebellion – People who cannot succeed but do not want to just admit defeat might rebel and try to create their own society with new goals and means.
SUBCULTURES
1. Status frustration: Cohen stated that lower working class boys want to aim towards mainstream success thats valued by most of society but because of failure in education they are faced with status frustration .
  1. These groups create their own norms and values and high values are placed on things such as stealing and vandalism which are condemned by mainstream society.
2. Cloward and Ohlin: developed Cohen’s theory. He said that there are three different types of subcultures that young people might enter into; criminal subcultures, conflict subcultures and retreatist subcultures.
  1. Criminal subcultures tend to emerge in areas where there is a lot of organised adult crime, here there are criminal role models for young people, and they learn how to commit criminal acts. In these subcultures the young people can climb up the professional criminal ladder by committing more crimes. These subcultures are normally concerned with utilitarian crimes, which yield financial reward.
  2. Conflict subcultures tend to emerge in areas where there is little organised adult crime, so instead of learning how to commit serious monetary crimes the young people instead focus on gaining respect through gang violence.
  3. Retreatist subcultures are for young people who have even failed in the criminal subcultures, these people are ‘double failures’. They tend to retreat to drugs and alcohol abuse to deal with the fact that they have been rejected from other subcultures.
3. Focal concerns: Miller said that the lower class have different norms and values altogether. There are 3 concerns they aim to achieve
  1. Toughness – Miller said that people within the lower-class subculture value toughness as an important trait; however this can manifest itself in assault and violence.
  2. Smartness – This culture also value the ability to outfox each other. This will often lead to people trying to con, pickpocket or steal from each other in ‘clever’ ways.
  3. Excitement – This culture constantly searches for excitement and thrills. This often means gambling, alcohol and sexual adventures.
INTERACTIONISTS
1. Howard Becker said that society creates rules and so anyone who acts outside of these rules is a deviant. Therefore the act itself isn’t deviant, it is how we label that act that makes it deviant.
2. Interactionists would point out how in one context, an act is considered deviant, in another it is normal – it is only when it is done in a way that is not publicly defined as proper that it becomes deviant. For example, killing is not always deviant or criminal, during war it is more deviant to refuse to kill.
3. Self fulfilling prophecy: labelling can lead to groups being victimized for crime. E.g. the police might label black youths as more likely to be a criminal. So they may be more likely to be charged with a criminal offence. Furthermore, interactionists say this labelling can mean a person is singled out as deviant, consequently acting like one.
4. Deviancy amplification spiral: that the public take sympathy with the way certain groups are treated, for example over-the-top media hatred, and this causes some of the public to join this victimized group of deviants. An example of this could be that after disturbances by mods and rockers in Clacton in 1984 led to heavy-handed treatment from the police, and this then led to more young people joining the mods and rockers out of hatred for the police.
MARXISTS
1. Chambliss (1976): laws in regard to property were first set up to ensure the ruling class’ wealth remained in the family, and if any of the working class tried to stop this they were classed as breaking the law. This is because the property and land were the main source of wealth for the ruling class, so it was important this was protected.
  1. Chambliss then goes on to identify as our economy changed to a capitalist model, the laws also changed and again are enforced to protect the ruling class.
2. Marxists go on to say that any laws which are made to protect the working class, for example anti-monopolistic laws, are only done so to appease the working class so they don’t figure out the injustice in the criminal system.
3. Chambliss also pointed out that the laws that aren’t passed are as important as the ones that are. He said that the ruling-class have the power to ensure that no laws are passed that could damage the position and power of the ruling class.
4. Marxists say that the crimes by the ruling class not only go unpunished but also cause many more problems that the street crimes by the working-class. For example, 20,000 are murdered every year in the US, whilst 100,000 are killed by cancer due to unsafe working conditions imposed on the working-class by the ruling class. This crime is neither recognised as important nor punished, yet it causes many more problems than the crimes of the working class.
5. NEO-MARXIST
  1. 1.The economy is the most important part of society, and it is from this that crime is born. 2. The capitalism is to blame for crime as it causes an inequality in society which is the root of crime 3. If we are to eradicate crime we must first see a transformation of society away from capitalism.
  2. Neo-marxist agree with the labellling theory put in place by the interactionists.
  3. Neo-Marxists say that the ruling class label certain members of the working class in order to gain benefits themselves, this is called a “fully social theory of deviance”.
  4. During the 1970’s several newspapers repeatedly reported incidents of mugging; Hall said this moral panic was built upon the idea of collective fear of ‘an enemy within’. He said this was because in the 1970’s Britain experienced an economic decline – a ‘crisis of capitalism’ – and the government needed someone for everyone to blame and rally against, uniting the people and allowing us to forget about the economic issues. By making the Black mugger someone to fear, it solidified a fractured UK society around the state.
    1. Neo-Marxists say that this is just one of many examples of how social background (in this instance you’re ethnicity and class) can result in you being deviant, but it is only because of the labelling from the ruling class that you become a deviant.
FEMINISTS
1. Sutherland (1949) said girls have a stricter upbringing whereas boys are encouraged to take risks; boys also have more opportunities to commit crimes due to their freedom.
2. Parsons (1955) said in the modern nuclear family men work and women stay at home and nurse. Therefore young girls have more access to their role model than the boys do as the father is working. Parsons said the boys will reject the mother as a role model and will seek to be more masculine through aggressive actions, leading to crime.
3. Before feminism, women were invisible in the sociological perspective. Crime by women was explained by saying females criminals were a ‘special case’ and were a result of sexual promiscuity or biological deviance. Essentially sociology didn't accept that normal women committed crime.
4. Feminists say that this ignorance of female crime is because society is patriarchal and is focused on men, ignoring the women. So feminists argue that the issues that other perspectives debate aren’t the really important ones, the biggest problem is that women are ignored.
5. Carlen found, using qualitative research on Scottish sheriffs and judges, that sheriffs were less likely to imprison women whom were good mothers but were more likely to punish single mothers or mothers with children in care.
REALISM
1. LEFT REALISM
  1. Jock Young, a left realist, said we need to be tough on crime, especially crimes committed by the working class against the working class.
  2. Lea and Young said that crime is rooted in social conditions and crime is closely connected to deprivation. However, this does not mean left realists see crime as a result of unemployment directly; this is because they observed crime rates in the 1930s when unemployment was very high and found them to be lower that crime rates in the 1980s when unemployment was low.
  3. Relative deprivation is when a group feels deprived in comparison to other similar groups, or when its expectations are not met. Young highlighted how increased media influence could lead to increased crime rates, as it leads to higher expectations so those in deprivation feel increased effects of relative deprivation
  4. Young suggested that we should deal with crime by trying to decrease the levels of social deprivation. This could be through welfare, infrastructure improvements, the creation of jobs etc. All of this would help reduce the feeling of relative deprivation and therefore the levels of crime.
2. RIGHT REALISM
  1. Hirschi’s control theory – He said we all face the temptation to commit crimes in life. However, most of us resist the temptation. This is because we have strong ties to social institutions such as families and schools. These institutions lead to correct socialisation, so those without strong links to them are the most likely to commit crimes.
  2. Charles Murray also said poor socialisation leads to crime; however, he focused on why this is more common in the ‘underclass’. He said the underclass wasn’t always those with the lowest income, but those who act in a certain way. Murray said the underclass are subjected to several factors which lead to crime: violence, unemployment, poverty etc. and this leads to higher crime.
    1. Charles Murray said one of the main reasons we have an underclass is the increase in childbirth outside of marriage. He said this increase in lone parent families has led to an increase in people who are lazy, violent and immoral. So Murray said childbirth outside of marriage is a factor affecting crime.
  3. Realist approaches say behaviour is determined by our choices we make, as we have free-will. Wilson and Hernstein said that criminal behaviour is a choice made by people who have been incorrectly socialised. They argue that society has become more and more used to ‘immediate gratification’. They also said that poor socialisation leads to a lack of self-control.
PHYSIOLOGICAL THEORIES
1. Cesare Lombroso argued that criminals were throwbacks to an earlier and more primitive form of human being. He said there were several characteristics, such as large jaws, extra fingers and monobrows which were clear signs that someone was a criminal.
2. Lombroso said that we can easily identify who the criminals, so we should remove them from normal society and we can therefore remove any criminals.
POSTMODERNISTS
1. Relativism; there is no such thing as valid or invalid knowledge. 2. Death of the subject; knowledge as control rather than liberation. 3. Grand theories are inadmissible.
2. Lyotard (1986): Post-modernism argues that knowledge produces people, in the sense that it controls who we are, what we think and what we do. The multiple realities argued for by post-modernists are referred to as narratives (stories).
3. Decline of meta-narratives
  1. 1. A change in technology and organisations, away from a concern with ends towards which we are meant to be aiming, and instead an emphasis on efficiency of systems .E.g. in education there has been a switch from the question 'what is the aim of educating children?',to the question 'how can we improve the quality of the product we deliver to our clients?' Philosophy takes a back seat to efficiency.
  2. The victory of capitalism over the predictions of Marxism. The project of the perfect society has been abandoned. Individual pursuit of goods and services has replaced idealism.
4. Baudrillad: 'The secret of theory is that truth doesn't exist. You can't confront it in any way.'
  1. Criticism 1. How can you have a general theory arguing that general theory is obsolete? This is the old problem of relativism. There is a logical contradiction. 2. How is it possible for postmodernism to be described as the historical epoch that comes after modernism when to do so is to lapse into a metanarrative - the coherence of history?

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