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Crime and Deviance (Functionalism & Crime (Merton's Strain Theory,…

- - - - Society expected to pursue this goal through legitimate means
        
        Reality is different: many disadvantaged groups are denied opportunities to achieve legitimately (poverty/inadequate schools)
        
        Resulting strain between the cultural goal of money and the lack of legitimate opportunities produces frustration and results in deviance.
    - - Uses strain theory to explain patterns of deviance
      - There are 5 different types of adaption depending on whenever an individual accepts/rejects/replaces approved cultural goals
        
        Innovation (They accept the goal of money success but use 'new' illegitimate means such as fraud
        
        Ritualism (Given up on trying to achieve goals, they have internalised the legitimate means so they follow rules for their own sake)
        
        Conformity (Acceptance of approved goals and want to achieve them legitimately)
        
        Retreatism (They reject both goals and the legitimate means and become dropouts)
        
        Rebellion (They reject society's goals but replace them with new ones in the desire to bring about change)
  - - - Every known society has had some level of crime
      - Durkheim (1893) 'crime is normal...an integral part of all healthy societies'
      - Two reasons for crime: Not everyone is equally socialised into shared norms/values; There is a diversity of lifestyles and values - different groups develop their own norms and values, what they see as normal the mainstream culture may think as deviant
    - - Boundary Maintenance - crime produces a united reaction from the public. For Durkheim - explains the function of punishment (reaffirm society's values).
        
        Cohen examined the importance of this role as a 'dramaisation of evil' - in his view, media coverage of crime & deviance causes 'folk devils' - Link to Media Topic
      - Adaption & Change - All change starts with deviance.
        
        Neither too much or too little crime is good for society (too much = tears bonds of society, too little = society is repressing & controlling its members too much)
    - - Durkheim doesn't offer any way of knowing how much crime is the right amount
      - Functionalism looks at what functions crime serves for society as a whole, ignoring how it effects different groups/individuals within society
        
        Example = a murderer punished reinforces solidarity to society but it isn't functional for the victim
      - Crime doesn't always lead to solidarity and can lead to isolation
- - - - Held et al: Globalisation of crime (increasing interconnected of crime across national boarders)
        
        Has also lead to the spread of transnational organised crime.
        
        Globalisation creates new opportunities for crime, new means of committing crime and new offenses - cyber-crimes.
      - As a result of Globalisation, Castells argues there is not a global criminal economy worth over £1 trillion per annum.
        
        Arms Trafficking (Illegal regime, guerilla groups and terrorists)
        
        Smuggling Illegal Immigrants (The Chinese Triads make an estimate $2.5 billion
        
        Sex Tourism (Where Westerners travel to Third World countries for sex, sometimes involving minors)
      - It has a supply and demand side
        
        Part of the reason for the scale of transnational organised crime is demand for its products and services in the rich West
        
        The economy wouldn't work without the supply side that provides the source of: Drugs, Sex Workers and other goods and services
        
        AO2: Third World Producing countries: Colombia, Peru & Afghanistan have large populations of impoverished peasants. Drug cultivation is a attractive option that requires little investment & commands high prices compared to traditional crops.
        
        Columbia - 20% of the population depends on cocaine production for their livelihood
    - - Refers to the organisations that emerged in Russia and Eastern Europe following the fall in communism
      - He traces the origins of transnational organised crime to the break-up of the Soviet Union after 1989, which coincided with the deregulation of global markets
        
        Under communism, the soviet state has regulated the prices of everything. However, following the fall of communism, the Russian government deregulated most sectors of the economy except for natural resources - oil.
        
        Thus, anyone with access to funds - such as former communist officials and the KGB (secret service) generals - could by up oil, gas, metals and diamonds
        
        This meant that people could buy them cheaply and sell them on the world market. This created a new elite - called oligarchs. To protect themselves they turned to new mafias which were criminal organisations that were vital for the new Russian capitalist class into the world economy
  - - - Beck argues that most threats to human well being and the Eco system are now human made rather than natural disasters.
        
        Late modern society: increase in productivity and technology has created new 'manufactured risks' Many of which involve harming environment (climate change). These are increasing on a global scale - Beck describes society as a 'global risk society'
        
        AO2: Green crime links to globalisation through the threats to the eco system have increasing global effects; e.g. a nuclear accident in 1 country can spread radioactive materials over thousands of miles
    - - Nation States & TNCs - Apply an anthropocentric (human-centred) view of environmental harm. Humans have a right to dominate nature, putting economic growth before the environment
      - Green Criminologists - Take an ecocentric view that sees humans and their environment as interdependent, so that environments; harm hurts humans too.
    - - Primary Green Crimes - Results directly from the destruction and degradation of the earths resources. South identifies 4 main primary crimes: Air pollution, deforestation, species decline and water pollution
      - Secondary Green Crime - Involve the flouting of rules aimed at preventing or regulating environmental disasters.
      - AO2: Link to State Crimes, State violence has been against oppositional groups. In 1985 the French secret service blew up the Greenpeace ship Rainbow Warrior to prevent it protesting against French nuclear tests in the Pacific.
- - - - The criminal justice system is more lenient with women so their crimes are less likely to end in official statistics
        
        Gives an invalid picture and exaggerates the difference between men and women
    - - Under reporting of male crime against women - only 8% of females of females who had been victims of serious sexual assault reported it
- - - - Labelling theorists argue that social control agencies (police, courts) tend to label certain groups as criminal
      - Piliavin & Briar: Found police decisions to arrest were based on stereotypical ideas of manner, class, gender, ethnicity
      - AO2: Labelling theory's interest in interactions between law enforcement agents and suspects series from the interactionist perspective, which focuses on how meanings are created through micro-level, face-face interactions and negotiations
    - - Cicourel: Argues the police use typifications of the 'typical delinquent' individuals fitting the typification are more likely to be stopped, arrested and charged
        
        Middle-Class Juveniles are less likely to fit the typification and have parents who can negotiate successfully on their behalf - less likely to be charged.
        
        Working class and ethnic minority juveniles are more likely to be arrested. Once arrested, those from broken homes are more likely to be charged
      - AO3: Marxists criticise labelling theory for failing to locate the origin of such labels in the unequal structure of capitalist society
    - - Working class people fit police typifications, so police patrol working class areas resulting in more working class arrests
      - Cicourel argues that we cannot take crime statistics at face value or use them as a resource. We should treat them as a topic and investigate the process by which they are constructed
      - AO3: But these alternatives have limitations e.g. people may lie when asked if they have committed a crime
  - - - Being labelled may provoke a crisis for the individuals self concept and lead to a SPF in which they live up to the label
      - Further societal reaction may reinforce the individuals outsider status and lead them to joining a deviant subculture
        
        The control processes aimed at producing law abiding behaviour thus produces the opposite
      - Youngs: Study of hippy mariuana uses illustrates this.
        
        Drug use was initially peripheral to the hippies' lifestyle (primary deviance) but police persecuted them as junkies (societal reaction) led them to retreat into closed groups - developing a deviance subculture.
    - - Folk Devils and Moral Panics - Cohens study of mods and rockers
      - The attempt to control deviance leads to it increasing rather than decreasing - resulting in greater attempts to control it and in tern more violence
      - AO2: Similarities between this and Lemert's idea of secondary deviance