Sociological explanations of crime and deviance

Functionalists

Merton

Durkheim

E: funct. subcultural

2 functions of punishment

2 functions of crime

1- acts as a deterrent. 2- reinforces wrong and right ideas

1- boundary maintenance. 2- adaption and change

E: Matza

Subcultural Views

Functionalists

Marxists

WC subcultures = fertile ground for crime to take place

Hall + Jefferson

Matza

Cloward + Ohlin

Miller

Cohen

Marxists

Pearce

Slapper + Tombs

Gordan

Snider

Chambliss

Neo-Marxists/Critical Criminology

Taylor, Walton + Young

crime is not inevitable

Davis- safety valve

Cohen- warning device

strain theory

strain between goals and achieving them

crime is a WC phenomenon

theory of anomie

crime is a feature of everyday life

Hirschi

why don't more people commit crime?

bonds of attachments

prevents anomie

commitment

attachment

belief

innovation

crime occurs when one is broken

5 responses to material goals of society

retreatism

rebellion

ritualism

innovation

conformity

E: 'white collar crime' is ignored

WC subcultures causes WC crime

failing in school = join delinquent subcultures

overcome status frustration

achieve status through membership in gangs

crime youth takes depends on illegitimate opportunity structure in their neighbourhood

conflict subculture

retreatist subculture

criminal subculture

utilitarian crime

gangs conflict

drugs

E: only focus on WC

delinquents part of mainstream WC culture

focal concerns

smartness

toughness

excitement

critical of funct. subcultural approach

youth drift in and out of delinquency

crime = more casual than made out to be

E: Hall + Jefferson

youth subcultures = symbolic/ritualistic attempts to resist the power of the bourgeois

adopt behaviour that seems threatening

e.g. punks

E: feminists - ignores gender inequality in crime

E: idolises people that commit crime

make them appear as victims of capitalism

laws created by ruling class

say what is/isnt crime

protect their own interests

selective policing = law favouring MC

capitalism = crimogenic

norms and values of capitalist societies create crime

E: ignores non-utilitarian crime

bias against the WC

why crime seems like WC phenomenon

E: not bc selective, bc MC crime is hard to detect

laws that benefit the WC, benefit the MC

e.g. health and safety laws keep the workforce strong and give MC a caring face

agrees with Pearce

capitalists states reluctant to pass laws that regulate activities of businesses that threaten their profitability

compare crime = rarely prosecuted and punished

encourages companies to use crime as a means of making profit

a 'fully socialised theory of crime and deviance

E: ignore intra-class crime

WC victims of crimes committed by WC

Interactionists

Focus on small scale studies

Cicourel

Cohen

Lemert

Braithwaite

Becker

deviance in the eye of the beholder

someone isn't deviant unless caught in the act

lead to...

master status

deviant career

self-fulfilling prophesy

secondary deviance

societal reaction

primary deviance

no point in studying

most important is SR in producing SD

typifications

ideas about what a typical delinquent is like

more likely to be charged

MC don't fit this

Mods and rockers

once labelled by the media they will live up to it

2 types of shaming

disintegrative shaming

reintegrative shaming

labelling results in social exclusion

act is labelled, not the actor - easier for criminals to be accepted back into society