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theories on crime and deviance, FUNCTIONALIST, STRAIN AND SUBCULTURAL…

- - - - Left realists believe the main causes of crime are marginalisation, relative deprivation and subcultures, and emphasise community oriented programmes for controlling and reducing crime. Left Realism was developed by Jock Young, John Lea and Roger Matthews as a response to the increasing influence of Right Realism.
    - - Late modernity, exclusion and crime
        
        Increased feeling of relative deprivation due to media, greater emphasis on the good life and unequal opportunities
        
        Reactions to crime are changing, less public consensus, less effective punishment and demands for harsher penalties
        
        Now live in a late modern society where inequalities, uncertainty and unemployment led to more crime
        
        Rising anti-social behaviour rate
        
        Since 1990s government policies have increased in range of behaviours, this has:blurred the boundaries of crime, crime has no subjective definition and it can be increased
        
        Falling crime rate, since the 1990s
        
        Relative deprivation and deviance is now more spread between social groups
      - Taking crime seriously
        
        See crime as a real problem and affects disadvantaged groups as its main victims
        
        Accuse other sociologists not taking it seriously
        
        Labelling theorists, neglects real victims
        
        Neo-Marxists, romanticise w/c criminals
        
        Marxists, neglect w/c crimes
        
        Disadvantaged groups more impacted and fearful of crime
      - Developed partly as a response to right realists
      - Try to explain crime and find a solution
        
        See society as unequal and capitalist, wanting gradual change
      - The causes of crime
        
        Relative deprivation
        
        Subculture
        
        See black youth as having high aspirations but not able to achieve them through legitimate means
        
        Argue black young men have bought into mainstream culture and accept that there has been an increase in crime committed by black males
        
        Pryce study of Afro Caribbean community in Bristol, found various subcultures, Rastafarians, saints, working class respectables and hustlers
        
        Different groups have different responses to problems. Some turn to crime to close the deprivation gap
        
        People have aspirations to material goods
        
        Lea and Young argue that frustration arises due to peoples expectations of life compared to the realities. Leads to feelings of relative deprivation, this can develop into deviant behaviour.
        
        Notes that when combined with individualism causes a spiral of crime.
        
        Marginsalisation
        
        Certain groups that find themselves on the edge of society, white and black w/c feel alienated by society
        
        Argue this may be the straw that breaks the camels back and economic marginalisation is transferred into crime.
      - Tackling crime
        
        Government policy
        
        Similarities between 1997-2010 New Labour tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime
        
        Young regards these policies as trying to recreate the golden age of the 1950s
        
        Policing and control
        
        Police too often turn to military placing alienating the community, argue that the relationship between the police and people needs to improve
        
        Tackling structural causes
        
        Changes need to be focued on, dealing with equality, tackle discrimination, provide decent jobs and housing, tolerate diversity
  - - - Anything like garfitti or vandalism must be removed immediately and the police must control the streets and not allow undesirable behaviour
      - Zero tolerance, Wilson and Kelling argue that it is vital to maintain orderly appearance of neighbourhoods to prevent crime taking hold
        
        Criticisms
        
        Over-emphasises the control of disorder rather than tackling the neighbourhood
        
        Preoccupied with petty crime does not look at corporate crime
        
        Gives police more reign to discriminate
        
        Zero tolerance and target hardening just leads to displacement
      - Seek to control, contain and punish. Crime prevention should reduce reduce rewards and increase cost to offenders via target hardening
      - Zero tolerance claimed to have worked in NYC
    - - This aspect of human nature therefore needs to be subject to social control
    - - Reject the view that structural and economic factors are cause of crime, product of three factors
        
        Rational choice
        
        Argue the risks are low so people commit more crime
        
        People have the choice to commit crime and weigh up the costs and risks .
        
        Individual biological differences
        
        Some individuals are more strongly predisposed to commit crime than others. For example personality traits such as aggresion
        
        Murray argue that it is low intelligence which they see as biologically determind
        
        Inadequate socialisation
        
        Effective socialisation reduces the risk of offending as it involves social control and learning moral values
        
        Charles Murray argues that crime is increasing due to an increase in the underclass which fails to socialise properly, welfare dependency
        
        The welfare states generous revolution allows people to become dependent and allows for less marriage and more lone parent families
        
        Also means that men no longer have the responsibility for children so don't have to work
        
        In turn lone parents are unable to socialise their children and boys turn to delinquent subcultures
- - - - :no_entry: criticisms
        
        not all capitalist societies have a high crime rate
        
        ignores relationship crime w gender or ethnicity
        
        too deterministic
        
        ignores intra-class crimes
      - ideological functions of crime and law
        
        laws are occasionally passed to benefit the w/c
        
        Pearce - such laws benefit the ruling class too + ideological function that the ruling class cares
        
        media and criminologists mask the fact that crime is created by capitalism
      - criminogenic crime
        
        capitalist competition + profit motive encourages white collar and corporate crime
        
        exploitation of the w/c = poverty leads to crime to survive
        
        crime may be the only way to obtain consumer goods encouraged by capitalist advertising
        
        alienation and lack of control - frustration and aggression
      - the state and law making
        
        laws only serve the ruling class, eg.Chambliss' example of English law in East African colonies
        
        selective enforcement of the law eg. crimes of the powerful are ignored in order to benefit capitalism
      - Neo-marxism: critical criminology
        
        Taylor et al argue that Marxism is too deterministic - they take a more voluntaristic view (crime is a conscious choice)
        
        A fully social theory of deviance
        
        :no_entry: criticisms
        
        Left realist - ignore effects on victims
        
        Feminist - 'gender blind'
        
        Left realist - romanticises w/c crime
        
        Burke - too general to explain crime and too idealistic to tackle crime
- - - - Douglas: the meaning of suicide
        
        Atkinson: coroner's common sense knowledge
        
        assumptions that coroners make when reaching the verdicts 'typical suicide'
        
        suicide statistics are socially constructed - tell us more about the people who have constructed them than the people killing themselves
        
        whether something is labelled as a suicide or not etc.
      - Mental illness - paranoia as self-fulfilling prophecy
        
        Lemert - some people get excluded, secondary deviance, further exclusion, discussion on how to deal with person, confirmed suspicions, reaction justified his mental condition
        
        Institutionalisation - Goffman 'mortification of the self', internalising their label
    - - Who gets labelled?
        
        Cicourel - officer's typifications lead them to arrest certain types of people (the negotiation of justice)
        
        justice is not fixed but negotiable eg. m/c youth less likely to be arrested than a w/c youth
        
        other agents of social control reinforced this bias
        
        law enforcement showing class bias - patrolling w/c areas more intensely and therefore resulting in more arrests which confirms the stereotype
        
        crime stats shud be used as topic rather than resource
        
        Pilivan and Briar - arrests of youth depend mainly on appearances
      - Becker
        
        social control agencies - campaign for change to extend their powers
        
        deviant is someone to whom the label has been applied
        
        role of moral entrepreneurs - moral crusades to change the law
        
        new laws = creation of 'outsiders' and the creation and expansion of social control agencies
      - no act is inherently criminal by itself -it only becomes a crime when it is labelles as so(nature of society's reaction to crime)
    - - labelling and criminal justice policy
        
        labelling theory has important policy implications - to
        reduce deviance we should make and enforce fewer laws
        
        reintegrative shaming
      - Lemert - primary and secondary deviance
        
        secondary deviance is the result of societal reaction which leads to exclusion from society - the label becomes their master status
        
        master status leads to a crisis of self-concept = self-fulfilling prophecy - becoming what they are labelled = secondary deviance
        
        primary deviance is deviant acts that have not been publicly labelled but it's pointless to seek the causes of primary deviance
        
        eg. Young's study of drugs in Notting Hill
      - deviance amplification spiral
        
        attempt to control deviance leads to more deviance - escalating spiral
        
        more deviance = more reaction =stereotypes confirmed
        
        folk devils are opposites of the dark figure of crime - overlabelled
- - - - punishment = reaffirms shared rules + social solidarity
- - - - criticims
        
        in reality people can belong to more than one subculture
        
        over predicts w/c crime
        
        ignores crimes of the wealthy
    - - different neighbourhoods provide different subcultures+ means to learn crime and create a crime career
        
        criminal subcultures
        
        conflict subcultures
        
        retreatist subcultures
- - - - pressure to deviate = the strain to anomie