Please enable JavaScript.
Coggle requires JavaScript to display documents.
crime and deviance - Coggle Diagram
crime and deviance
labelling
deviance is a social construct. social groups create deviance by creating rules and applying them to particular people
-
- primary deviance - deviant acts that have not yet been labelled as deviant
- secondary deviance - results from societal reaction e.g. labelling
self fulfilling prophecy - provoke a crisis for the individuals in which they live up to their label
deviance amplification spiral - the attempt to control deviance leads to it increasing rather than decreasing
Mods and Rockers :
- used to explain deviance amplification spiral, media exaggeration began s moral panic, moral entrepreneurs called for a 'crackdown'. police responded by arresting more youths. demonising the mods and rockers marginalised them further, resulting in more deviance
official statistics are socially constructed - at each stage of the criminal justice system, agents of social control make decisions about whether or not to proceed to the next stage, and this depends on the label that is applied
the 'dark' figure of crime - the difference between the statistics and the real rate of crime, called the dark figure because we do not know how much crime goes undetected etc.
-
marxist
capitalism is criminogenic - the nature of capitalism causes crime. working class may be the result of poverty, which means that crime is the only way to survive.
-
Reiman shows crimes of the powerful are less likely to be treated as criminal offences and prosecuted. higher rates of prosecution for crimes of the poor
health and safety laws seem to benefit workers - also benefit capitalism. creates a false class consciousness
- largely ignores the relationship between crime and non-class inequalities e.g. gender
- not all capitalist societies have high crime rates
- the criminal justice system does sometimes act against the interest of the capitalist class
- ignores crimes where both the victim and the offender are working class
neo marxists believe that the marxist theory of crime is deterministic - not everybody commits crime out of economic necessity, instead they believe that everybody commits crime by choice, rather than by necessity
- romanticises working class criminals, too generalistic in explaining crime
functionalist
boundary maintenance - crime produces a reaction from society, uniting its members in condemnation of the wrongdoer, therefore reinforcing the value consensus
adaptation and change - all change starts with an act of deviance, individuals must first challenge the existing norms and values which will at first appear deviant, but the rest of society will eventually conform and make the necessary changes
- Durkheim does not specify how much crime is 'enough' to maintain society
- ignores how it may affect the individual
- crime doesn't always promote solidarity, it could lead to people becoming more isolated
realist theories
left realism
marginalisation, subculture and relative deprivation
-
police spend too little time actually investigating crime and that the police clear up rates are too low to act as a deterrent to crime
-
- define crime as committed by the poor, rather than the rich driving the poor to commit crime
-
right realism
biological differences, rational choice theory, the underclass
Wilson and Herrnstein argue that biological differences predispose certain individuals to commit crime
ZTP - Wilson and Kelling's broken windows argues that it is essential to maintain the orderly character of neighbourhoods to prevent crime taking over, and so any act of deviance must be dealt with immediately
-
- allows police to discriminate against people
- ZTP and target hardening lead to displacement of crime to other areas
gender and crime
Pollack - the chivalry thesis - men act chivalrous towards women and therefore they are punished less for their offences
- official statistics show that females are more likely to be released on bail than men are, and are less likely to receive a prison sentence
- self report studies provide evidence that shows men commit more offences than women
- many male crimes do not get reported
-
-
-
-
-
-