A2 Sociology - Crime and Deviance

Theories
1. Normative
  1. Functionalist
2. Relativistic
  1. Marxist
  2. Interactionist
3. Anomie
  1. Postive Apects
    1. Helps society develop
    2. DURKHEIM - Little crime necessary to bring the community together
      1. Reaffiriming boundries
      2. Social Cohesion
        EXAMPLE
      3. Changing Values
  2. Negative aspects
    1. Too much crime leading to social disruption (doesnt mention how crime is "necessary"
4. Social Control
  1. Formal
    1. Social Institions
    2. Fines, Prison
  2. Informal
    1. Subtle & Manifested in situations
    2. HIRSCHI - People have social bonds in society stopping them from commiting crime
      1. 1.Attachment (Care about peoples opions and wishes)
      2. 2.Commitment (Personal Investments)
      3. 3.Involvement (Time)
      4. 4.Belief (Obey the rules of Society)
    3. Growded by Parents, Disapproving Looks
Strain & Subcultural Theories
1. MERTON - Strain Theory
  1. Crime and deviance occur due to poor fit between socially accepted goals of society and socially approved means of achieveing those goals
  2. 1.Conformity
    1. Accept Goals, Accept Means
  3. 2.Innovation
    1. Accept Goals, Reject Means (Use crime)
  4. 3.Ritualism
    1. Reject Goals, Accept Means
      1. Sight of goal is lost
  5. 4.Retreatism
    1. Reject Goals, Reject Means
      1. Dependent upon drugs and alcohol
  6. 5.Rebellion
    1. Reject Goals, Reject Means
      1. Different means & goals are substitued. E.g. Political activist or religious fundamentalist
2. CLOWARD & OHLIN - Illegitimate Opportunity Structure
  1. Criminal
    1. Young offenders "can work their way up the ladder"
  2. Conflict
    1. Groups fighting against each other same enviroment e.g. violent gang 'warfare'
  3. Retreatist
    1. individual response when there is no opportunity or ability to engage
  4. EVALAUATION - Difficult to accept there is no clear distinction & no discussion about female deviancy
3. Status Frustration
  1. a sense of personal failure and inadequancy
    1. rejecting values and acceptible behaviour they could get success within
4. MILLER - Focal Concerns
  1. 1.Smartness 2.Trouble 3.Excitement 4.Autonomy 5.Fate
    1. Likely to lead to delinqunecy - MILLER believes this only applys to lower-class males
5. Subterranean Values - techniques of neutralisation
6. Masculinity
7. Neo - Tribes
8. "American Dream", motivation,hard work, upward mobility
Critical Criminologies/Marxist
1. The basis of criminal law
2. The dominany hegemony of the ruling class
3. Law Enforcement
4. Individual Motivation
5. Crime and Control
6. CRITISMS - victim ignored, no harm taken into account, law creation and enforcement one dimensional
7. Subcultural Theory
  1. Ideological domiance throught the media
  2. Enconomic pressures - people want to keep their jobs & pay their mortgages
Labelling Theories
1. most people commit deviant and criminal acts beacuse they have been given a negative label
2. MALINOWSKI Describe how a youth killed himself due to be publically accused of incest. Islander expressed horror and disgust. However when investigated insest of the island was not uncommon or frowded upon provided they were discreet.
3. If a person is successfully labelled, then consequences follow
4. Someone has to enforce rules or draw attention them - people with vested interest
5. CRITISMS - AKERS critised labelling theorists for presenting deviants as perfectly normal people until someone comes along and slaps a label on them. AKERS believes there has to a specific reason
6. Master Status
7. Media - Moral Panics
Patterns of Crime
1. Working Class likely to commit crimes
2. Ploce Recorded Statisitics (Social Construction)
3. Non Reporting Crimes because: Too Trivial, Private Matter, Embarrisment, victim may be to report crime, fear reprisals
4. Victims more likely to report crime if: they see benefit, have faith in police ability to recieve postive results
5. The role of the police
  1. Seriousness, Social Status, Classifying, Discretion, Promotions
6. The Role of Courts
  1. Plea-bargining
7. Victim Surveys
  1. Strengths - large proportion of offences not recorded
  2. Omit large range of crime such as theft or fraud participates may be unaware of crime commitied, people still may not answer honestly e.g. sexual offences still underreported even theough anoymous
  3. Weaknesses
    1. Considerable inaccuracy in catergorising
    2. hard to collect from younger people
    3. Records based off of memories causes account to be faulty /bias
    4. Hard to collect from younger people
8. Self Report Studies
  1. Weaknesses - Validity, Representatiivenesss, Relevance
9. Types of Offences
  1. Property Crime - British Crime Survey approx. 62%
  2. Violent Crime - BCS approx. 28%
10. Types of Victims
  1. Young Males, often unemployed or low waged
  2. 88% cases of violence, the victim and perpetrator know each other
  3. Victims of property crime are most likley to be low income households living in poorer areas
  4. Repeat victimisation common
  5. Criminal target the poorer and less powerful groups in society
Enviromental Approach: The Place & Time
1. Chicago Sociology
  1. The pattern - SHAW AND MACKAY
    1. Plotted addreses on a map, found patterns in zones
    2. each successive wave of immigrants move to less desireable socieity, the successful move out, more immigrant move into vacanies - high population turn over created social disorganisation
      1. Social disorganisation lead to cultural transmission theory - crime becoming socially accepted
2. Differential association
  1. 1.Frequency - the number of times the definitions
  2. 2.Duration - over what length of time
  3. 3.Priority - e.g. at what stage of life - childhood socialisation mostly important
  4. 4.Intensity - the status of the person law breaking e.g.family vs stranger
  5. Someone is likely to become criminal 'if they receive an excess of definitions favourable to violation of law over definitions favorable to violation of law'
3. Housing policies
  1. Crime rates certainly varied by areas, but in more complex patterns
  2. MORRIS - found high delinquency had similar values to mainstream society - criminal housing - have problematic families together led to high crime statisitcs
  3. Explanining Offences
    1. Cogitive Maps - PJ and PL BRANTINGHAM
      1. We all hold 'cogitive maps' of the towns and cities where we live - routes
    2. Opportunity Theories
    3. Routine Activities
    4. Situational Crime Prevention
    5. The Privatisation of public Space
    6. Night Time Economy
    7. Socicalisation, Culture and Identity - The declin of community
Gender Issues
1. Female commit less crime
  1. Chivarlry Theory
    1. Physical Attraction
  2. Biological Explanations - Men stronger than women, Women more diplimatic
  3. Functionalist Sex-role theory
    1. Socialisation
    2. Social Control
    3. Marginalisation
      1. females have categorsised as being more passive and less aggressive than men generally
  4. changing role or 'liberationist' perceptive
2. Transgression: (Postmodernist)
  1. Women stay in an night due to fear of becoming victim
  2. Domestic Violence
  3. how women are treated by the law in issues of rape and harrassment (where they form the overwhelming bulk of the victms)
3. Male Crime
  1. Normative Masuclinity
    1. Social approved idea of what a man is
    2. Poverty and Class
  2. Katz:Seductions of Crime
  3. Lyng:Edgework
Occupational, Corporate and enviromental crime
1. Globalisation
  1. Capitalism
  2. Better methods of communication allows goods, knowledge and services to cross distances and national borders easily
  3. caused by: modern ICT, global mass, cheap air travel and deregulation of finance and other markets
  4. it creases insecurities and widening inequanities encouraging people to turn to crim
  5. led to increase to: dealing in illcit drugs, illefal trafficking in weapons, human beings, coruption, violent crimes including terroism, war crimes
2. Occupational - Crimes commited by the employee against employer
  1. Examples - sale expense claims, theft, depriving goods, services or money
  2. Fiddling is seen as reward of the job
3. Corporate - Crimes commited against the public and employees
  1. Cost economic more than conventional crime - little attention paid to sanctions
  2. not considered newsworthy - often scandal or abuse not crime
  3. Example - Self Employed - tax evasion (Amazon, Starbucks - Based in Ireland), polluting enviroment in the IDC Countries
4. Enviromental/Green Crime - crime against the enviroment or economy
Ethinicity and crime
1. The Criminal Justice System
  1. Biases
2. Greater levels of stop and search of young black males rather than white males or females
3. Official Statistics
4. Victimisation Studies
5. Cicourel
Suicide

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A2 Sociology - Crime and Deviance

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	Created by hannahvullo almost 10 years ago