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Theories of Crime and Deviance - Coggle Diagram
Theories of Crime and Deviance
New Right
Murray
- Poor socialisation leads to underclass to develop criminality and laziness. Blames overgenerous benefit payments and single parents for high rates of criminality.
Murray and Hernstein
- Argue there is a link between IQ and criminality. Low IQ more likely to commit crime.
Hirschi
- Those who have weak social bonds are likely to commit crimes. 4 bonds preventing crime: Attachment, Commitment, Involvment and Belief.
Marxism
Crime suits the powerful ruling class and maintains their control. Capitalist system drives crime. All social classes commit crime, it is the criminal justice system whereby lower classes are arrested more.
Althusser
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RSA
: Direct formal control from Government, army, police.
ISA
: Informal control socialises us into accepting ideology by family, education, social media.
The ISA is used to divide and scare people and justify the use of the RSA.
Box
- Crime statistics are socially constructed to criminalise the powerless and disguise the crimes of the powerful.
Alienation
= Concept used to describe the powerlessness and lack of control felt by the proletariat created by exploitation. Can drive people to criminality.
Bonger
- Capitalism and society create a climate of competition leading to crime in response to poverty.
Gordon
- Crime is usually a rational response. Capitalism creates the conditions where crimes is carried out eg. poverty.
Chambliss
- Stucture of capitalism creates desire to consume and the inability to earn enough money to meet the desires. Enforcement of the law which suggests criminality is focused in the lower classes.
Feminism
Focus on why females do not commit crime, highlights the controls over women in a patriarchal society.
Smart 'Malestream Criminology'
- Stricter socialisation and control over women are fed by fears about safety. Men are more likely to be attacked but fear leads to women becoming prisoners in their own home. Crime is focused on male crime.
Women have more to lose as crime is role-distorting therefore women risk punishment and disapproval.
Heidensohn Control Theory
- 4 forms of control
Home- Role of housewife and mother
Public- Reputation and expectations
Work- Burden of the housewife and worker
Social Policy- Welfare and benefits
Carlen
- Argues the cost of criminal behaviour will usually outweigh the benefits for women. Women most likely to become offenders are those who have grown up in care or have been marginalised by the education and employment system.
Freda Adler Liberation Theory
- The new female criminal. Liberation and equality lead females to adopt masculine behavioir therfore crime will rise. More opportunity will arise for crime as females leave the domestic sphere.
Gelsthorpe
- Argues the increase in women in prison does not necessarily reflect an increase in criminality, but more a shift in sentencing policy. Possibly a change in society's perception of women. Decline in chivalry and change in perception of women.
Chesney-Lind
- Poor and marginalised women in the USA are more likely to be criminals than 'liberated' middle class women.
James and Thornton
- Found that women prisoners were most likely to be from impoverished and uneducated backgrounds.
Evil Woman Theory
- Women break rules and are demonised as it goes against femininity.
Crime is role-distorting goes against expected behaviour so they have more to lose. they risk not just punishment but also disapproval as seen as 'unfeminine'.
Functionalism
Merton
- "Strain Theory" crime is a result of strain. People may have goals but do not have means of achieving them and therefore crime results.
5 Modes of Adaptation and responses: Conformity, Innovation, Ritualism, Retreatism, Rebellion.
Durkheim
- Crime is an integrated and normal part of a healthy society. However, anomie must be avoided
Interactionism
Young
- Deviance amplification- Society's reaction causes isolation, labelling and rebellion causing further deviance.
Cicourel
- Certain demographics are labelled deviant and therfore are targetted by the police. Study found that those of the lower class were more likely to be arrested than middle class members were handeld more leniently.
Becker
- Labelling theory- An act is only seen as deviant once labelled deviant. Deviance is socially constructed.
Rejects crime statistics, argue crime is individual, focuses on why people are labelled criminal.
Lemert
- Primary deviance: Not publicly labelled, minor, little impact.
Secondary deviance: Consciously deviant and labelled.
Master status
- Labelling begins to define someone purely by the perception of them as deviant- this label becomes their master status.
Self-fulfilling prophecy
- Person accepts this new status and begins to believe it.
Matza
- Many youths will drift in and out of deviance because they feel a moral obligation of the law but also feel pressure persue risks and excitment that they recieve from deviant acts.
Right Realism
Wilson and Hernstein
- Argue there is a biological element to criminal behaviour. Lack of proper socialisation.
Accept police recorded crime figures of the "typical criminal". Focus on street crime of the working class. Blame individual offender.
Wilson
- 3 factors leading to crime. Shift in age structure eg. more males= more crime. Economy. Social state if country influence norms and values. Does not belive poverty is the main cause.
Wilson and Kelling
- Once there is a criminal culture there is little point policing it. Those at tipping point can be restored.
Zimbardo
- "Broken Window" experiment. Left a car in middle class area and a lower class area. Middle class was not damaged. Lower class was ruined. Later went back and smashed the window in the middle class area and then people began to follow in ruining it. Shows setting of standards.
Neo-Marxism
Criminal behaviour is an act of choice which is often politically motivated. Neo-Marxists believe capitalism makes people choose criminal behaviour. Express anger and frustration about the social system.
Chambliss
-"Saints and the Roughnecks". Study of 2 gangs. Saints middle class and Roughnecks lower class. Committed similar crimes yet the Roughnecks were arrested more due to their class. Shows selective perception and labelling.
Hall
- Policing the crisis, the state creates a crime problem to justify increasing control. Certain groups are criminalised.
Taylor, Walton and Young
- "Fully Social Theory of Deviance". Inequalities between rich and poor are at the root of the crime. To understand must know the meaning of the act for the individual, the impact of society's reaction and circumstances surrounding the choice of the individual.
Sub-Cultural theories
Believe the typical criminal is young, working class, male. Form deviant sub-cultures which normalise crime.
A Cohen
- "Status Frustration". Gang culture and deviant acts as a way to gain status in a group, which isn't obtainable in society.
Cloward and Olin
- Delinquent sub-cultures influenced by strain theory. Criminal gangs offer more opportunity to success than mainstream/legitimate rules.
Miller
- Working class values more likely to engage in deviant behaviour. Freedom, excitement, toughness, to be streetwise.
Katz
- Must understand why a person is tempted to commit crimes. A way for those to gain status and respect through other means.
Nightingale
- "Paradox of inclusion" the desire to be a part of the mainstream culture which excludes people. Crime allows for them to achieve goals in response to their exclusion.
Presdee
- Reason for committing crimes is the "Revolt against the mundane" the risk involved is what makes it appealing.
Left Realism
Matthews and Young
- "Square of Crime". Explains how crime happens at an intersection. They are criminal justice system, criminal offender, victim of crime and general public.
Lea and Young
- 3 concepts of why people commit crimes. Relative deprivation, Marginalisation, Subculture.
Young
- Exclusive Society explains how social exclusion leads to crime.
White-Collar Crime
Crime committed by professionals in the course of their employment. WC crime is hard to estimate as powerful people are able to use their money, status and political power to escape conviction. Unlikely or appear in victim surveys as they often do not know.
3 types of crime- Occupational crime eg. stealing from employer. Corporate crime eg. crime carried out by business often to increase profit. State crime eg. acts of war.
Sutherland
- Crime committed by someone of respectability and high social status. Not just upper class.
Croall
- Questions importance of status. Defines as "abuse of occupational role".
Tombs
- Analysed deaths at work caused by employer activity. Found that workplace deaths outweighed number of recorded homocides.
Goldstraw-White
- Those convicted of WC crime did not consider themsleves as "criminal" and did not accept that they had done anything wrong as they didn't "hurt" anyone.
Freidrichs
- Depite the chance of getting caught is low, risk plays a part in WC crime which is part of the appeal.