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crime and deviance - Coggle Diagram

- - - - sees crime as the product of inadequate socialisation into a shared culture. Miller argues that the lower class has an independent subculture opposed to mainstream culture, and this explains their higher crime rate.
    - - this argues that the class structure, denies working class people opportunity to achieve by legitimate means, so they are more likely to innovate
    - - Cohen sees working-class youths as culturally deprived and unable to achieve in education. Failure gives rise to status frustration. As a solution, they form delinquent subculture, is in which they gain status from peers. Cloward and Ohlin identify three deviant subcultures: criminal, conflict and retreatist
    - - this rejects the view that official statistics are valid picture of what class commits most crime. They focus on the role of law enforcement agencies, which have the power to label the working class as criminals.
  - - - crime is inevitable in capitalism, because capitalism is criminogenic - its very nature causes crime.
        working-class crime capitalism is based on the exploitation of the working class for profit. As a result:
        
        Poverty may mean crime is the only way some can survive
        
        Crime may be the only way of obtaining consumer goods, encouraged by capitalist advertising, resulting in utilitarian crimes
        
        alienation may cause frustration and aggression leading to non-utilitarian crimes
        ** capitalism is a win at all costs system of competition, while the profit motive encourages greed. This encourages capitalists to commit corporate crimes e.g. Tax evasion, breaking health and safety laws.
        As Gordon, 1975, argues, crime is a rational response to capitalism, and thus is found in all classes
    - - marxists lawmaking and enforcement, as serving the interests of the capitalist class. Chambliss (1975) argues that laws to protect private property, are the basis of a capitalist economy. The ruling class also have the power to prevent the introduction of laws harmful to their interests. Few laws challenge that unequal distribution of wealth
    - - while all classes commit crime, there is selective enforcement of the law.
        
        Reiman (2001) shows the crimes of the powerful and watch this likely to be treated as criminal, offences and prosecuted
        
        By contrast, there is a much higher rate of prosecutions for the crime of the poor
    - - crime and the law perform ideological functions for capitalism.
        
        Some laws benefit workers e.g. Health and safety. However, Pearce (1976) argues that these also benefit capitalism. By giving it a caring face., it creates false consciousness
        
        Because the state enforces the law selectively, crime appears to be largely working class. This divides the working class, encouraging workers to blame, working-class criminals for their problems, rather than capitalism
        
        Selective enforcement distorts the crime statistics. By making crime appear largely working class, it’s shifts attention from a more serious ruling class crime
    - - marxists agree that the law is unforced, mainly against the working class and the official statistics are flawed. But they criticise labelling theory for ignoring the structure of capitalism within which law making, enforcement and offending take place. Marxist explanations of crime flow from their analysis of the nature of capitalist society.
        Marxism sees capitalist society as divided into the ruling capitalist class, who own the means of production, and the working class, who is labour capitalist exploit for profit.
        Marxism is a structural theory: society is a structure who is capitalist economy base determines the superstructure i.e. all other institutions, including the state, the law and criminal justice system. Their function is to serve ruling class interests. For Marxists the structure of capitalism explains crime.
  - - - instead, Taylor et al take a more voluntaristic view, (the idea that we have free will): crime is a conscious choice, often with a political motive, for example, to redistribute wealth from the rich to the poor. Criminals are deliberately struggling to change society.
    - - Taylor et al aim to create a fully social theory of deviance -a comprehensive theory that would help to change society for the better. This Siri would have two main sources:
        
        Marxist, ideas about the unequal distribution of wealth, and who has the power to make an enforce the law
        -Labelling theorists ideas about the meaning of the deviant act for the actor, societal reactions to it, and the effects of deviant label the individual
    - - Neo-Marxist Taylor, Walton and Young agree with traditional Marxists that:
        
        Capitalism is based on exploitation and inequality. This is the key to understanding crime.
        
        The state makes them in forces laws in the interest of capitalism and criminalises the working class
        
        Capitalism should be replaced by classless society, which would greatly reduce crime
        However, Taylor et al criticise traditional Marxism for its determinism. They reject this view, along with other theories that claim crime is caused by external factors.
  - - - Professionals occupy positions of trust and respectability that give them the opportunity to violate this trust. In Sutherlands view, this makes white collar crime, a greater threat to society than working class ‘street’ crime, because it promotes distrust of key institutions and undermines the fabric of society.
    - - the media
        
        The media give very limited coverage to corporate crime and often describe it as technical infringements. This reinforces the stereotype that crime is a working class phenomenon.
      - lack of political will
        
        lack of political will to tackle corporate crime
      - CC is complex
        
        foreign forces under resourced and lacked technical expertise to investigate effectively
      - de-labelling
        
        offences are often defined as civil; penalties are often fines, not jail.
      - under-reporting
        
        often, the victim is society at large, rather than a particular individual. Victims may not know they have been victimised, not regard it as a real crime or feel powerless and not report the offence
      - corporate crime is often invisible or else not seen as real crime, because:
    - - although all classes commit crime, the law is selective reinforced and higher class and corporate offenders are less likely to be prosecuted.
        white collar crime: Sutherland (1949) define is white collar crime as a crime committed by a person of respectability and high status in the course of his occupation. This can include:
        
        occupational crime committed by employees for personal gain e.g. Stealing from the company.
        
        corporate crime committed for the companies benefit e.g. To increase its profits.
        the scale of corporate crime: corporate crime does far more harm than ordinary crime. It has enormous physical, environmental and economic costs. Tombs (2013) includes that corporate crime is widespread routine and pervasive.
        — financial crimes
        — crimes against consumers
        — crimes against employees
        — crimes against the environment
  - - - Company cannot achieve its goal of maximising profit by legitimate means, it may employ illegal ones instead. Clinard and Yeager (1980) found companies law violations increased as their profitability declined
    - - Sutherland sees crime as socially learned behaviour. If a company is deviant subculture is justifies committing crime, employees will be socialised into criminality. They may learn techniques of neutralisation to justify their crimes.
    - - an act counts as a crime, only if it has been labelled. Companies often have the power to avoid labelling e.g. By hiring expensive lawyers. The inability of enforcement agencies to investigate effectively also reduces the number of offences officially labelled.
    - - marxism sees corporate crime as resulting from the normal functioning of capitalism. Because capitalism is goal is to maximise profita, it’s inevitability causes harm e.g. to employees and consumers. Corporations comply with the law, only if it is enforced strictly.
- - - - while crime disrupts social stability, functionalists see it as inevitable and universal. Durkheim sees crime as a normal part of all healthy societies:
        
        in every society, some individuals are inadequately, socialised and prone to deviate
        
        in modern societies, there is a highly specialised division of labour and the diversity of subcultures. Individuals and groups become increasingly different from one another, and the shared rules of behaviour become less clear. Durkheim calls this anomie (normlessness)
    - - boundary maintenance
        
        crime produces a reaction from society, uniting its members against the wrongdoing and reinforcing their commitment to the value consensus
        
        this is the function of punishment: to reaffirm shared rules and reinforce solidarity. E.g. Courtroom rituals publicly stigmatise offenders, reminding everyone of the boundary between right and wrong
      - adaptation and change
        
        for change to occur individuals with new ideas must challenge existing norms, and at first this will appear as deviance. If this is suppressed, society will be unable to make necessary adapt to changes and will further stagnate.
        functionalists, identify further positive functions of deviance:
        
        safety valve Davis argues that prostitution acts release men’s sexual frustrations without threatening the nuclear family
        
        warning light Cohen argues that deviance indicates that an institution is malfunctioning
    - - Durkheim claims society requires a certain amount of deviance to function, but offers no way of knowing how much is the right amount
        
        Durkheim, another functionless explain crime in terms of its function e.g. to strengthen solidarity. But just because crime does these things, doesn’t necessarily mean this is why exist in the first place
    - - functionalists see society as a stable system based on value consensus – shared norms, values, beliefs and goals. This produces social solidarity, finding individuals together into a harmonious unit.
        To achieve this, society has two key mechanisms:
        
        socialisation instills the shared culture into its members to ensure that they internalise the same norms and values, and that they feel it right to act in the ways that society requires
        
        social control mechanisms include rewards for conformity and punishments for deviance
  - - - subcultural strain theory, both criticise Mertons theory and build on it. They see deviance as the product of delinquent subcultures. The subcultures of the lower class members a solution to the problem of how to gain the status they cannot achieve by legitimate means.
    - - Merton shows how both normal and deviant behaviour can arise from the mainstream goals. Conformists and innovators both pursue the same goal, but by different means:
        He explains the pattern shown in official statistics:
        
        Most crime is property crime because American society values material wealth so highly
        
        Working-class crime rates are higher because they have least opportunity to obtain wealth legitimately
    - - for Merton, deviance is the result of a strain between the goals a culture encourages individuals to aim for, and what the structure of society actually allows them to achieve legitimately
        
        For example, the American dream emphasises money success. Americans are expected to pursue this goal by legitimate means.
        
        The ideology claims that American society is meritocratic. But in reality, poverty and discrimination block opportunities for many to achieve by legitimate means
        
        The resulting strain between the cultural goal (money success) and the lack of legitimate opportunities produces frustration and a pressure to resort to illegitimate means
        
        The pressure is increased by the fact that American culture puts more emphasis on achieving success at any price, and upon doing so by legitimate means. Winning the game is more important than playing by the rules.
    - - Merton seeks to explain, different patterns of deviance. He argues that an individual’s position in the social structure affects how they adapt to the strain to anomie. He identifies five adaptions:
        
        Conformity: individuals accept the culture of the approved goals, and strive to achieve them legitimately
        
        Innovation: individuals, except the money success goal, but he’s a legitimate means to achieve it. This is typical of those who lack legitimate opportunities.
        
        Ritualism: individuals give up on the goal, but have internalised the legitimate means, and follow the rules for their own sake
        
        Retreatism: individuals reject both goal, and legitimate means, and drop out society
        
        Rebellion: individuals replace existing goals and means with new ones with the aim of bringing about social change
    - - merton argues that people engage in deviant behaviour when they cannot achieve socially approved goals by legitimate means. His explanation combines:
        
        structural factors: societies unequal opportunity structure
        
        cultural factors: the strong, emphasis on success goals and weaker emphasis on using legitimate means to achieve them
  - - - For Cohen, the subculture offers an illegitimate opportunity structure, for boys have failed to achieve legitimately
        
        The subculture provides an alternative status hierarchy where they can win status through delinquent actions
        
        Its values are spite, malice, hostility and contempt for those outside it. The subculture invert mainstream values. What society praises, it condemns
    - - Cohen agrees that much deviance results from the lower classes in ability to achieve mainstream success goals by legitimate means such as education. However, he criticises Mertons explanation:
        
        Merton sees deviance as an individual response to strain, ignoring the group deviance of delinquent subcultures
        
        Merton focuses on utilitarian crime for material gain e.g. theft. He ignores non-utilitarian crimes, which may have no economic motive
        Cohen notes that working-class boys face anomie in the middle class education system
        
        They are culturally deprived and lack the skills to achieve, leaving them at the bottom of the official status hierarchy
        
        As a result, they suffer status frustration. They resolve it by rejecting mainstream, middle-class values and turn instead to others in the same situation, forming a subculture
  - - - these provide you with an apprenticeship in utilitarian crime. They arise in neighbourhoods where there is a long-standing stable, criminal culture and hierarchy professional adult crime.
        
        adult criminals can select and train those youths with the right abilities and provide them with opportunities on the criminal career ladder
    - - These arise in areas of high population turnover that prevent a stable professional criminal network developing. The only illegitimate opportunities are within loosely organised gangs.
        
        violence provides a release for frustration at blocked opportunities and an alternative source of status and by winning ‘turf’ from rival gangs.
    - - The ‘double failures’ who fail in both illegitimate and a legitimate opportunity structures often turned to a retreatist or dropout subculture based on illegal drug use.
    - - Like Merton and Cohen, Cloward and Ohlin ignore crimes of the wealthy, and the wider power structure, and overpredict the amount of working-class crime
        
        But, unlike Cohen, they tried to explain, different types of working-class deviance in terms of different subcultures
        
        They draw the boundaries to sharp between different types. Actual subculture is often show characteristics of more than one type.
    - - they agree with Merton thatworking-class youths are denied legitimate opportunities to achieve, and that their deviance stems from their response to this.
        But they note that not everyone adapts to a lack of legitimate opportunities by turning to innovation (utilitarian crime). Some subcultures resort to violence, others turn to drug use
        
        In their view, the key reason for these differences is not only unequal access to the legitimate opportunity structure, but an equal access to illegitimate opportunity structures. For example, not everyone who fails at school can become a successful safecracker.
        
        Different neighbourhoods provide different illegitimate opportunities to learn criminal skills and develop criminal careers. They identify three types of sub cultures that result.
- - - - labelling theorists argue that social control agencies tend to label certain groups as criminal
        
        Piliavin and Briar (1964) found police decisions to arrest, were based on stereotypical ideas about manner, dress, gender, class, ethnicity, time and place
    - - Cicourel (1976) argues that police use typifications of the ‘typical delinquent’. Individuals fitting the typification are more likely to be stopped, arrested and 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.
        
        middle-class, juveniles are less likely to fit the typification and have parents who can negotiate successfully on their behalf. They are less likely to be charged.
    - - working-class people fit police typification is so police patrol, working-class areas resulting in more working-class arrests.
        
        thus crime statistics, recorded by the police do not give a valid picture of crime patterns
        
        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 processes by which they are constructed.
        The dark figure is the difference between the official statistics and the real rate of crime - so called, because we do not know for certain how much crime goes undetected, unreported and unrecorded
        
        some sociologist, therefore use victim surveys or self report studies to gain a more accurate view
  - - - primary deviance is deviant acts that have not been publicly labelled. They have many causes, are often trivial and mostly go uncaught. Those who commit them do not usually see themselves as deviant.
        secondary deviance results from societal reaction i.e. Labelling. Labelling someone as an offender can involve stigmatising and excluding them from normal society. Others may see that offender solely in terms of the label, which becomes individuals master status or controlling identity
    - - being labelled may provoke a crisis for the individuals self concept and lead to SFP, in which they live up to the label resulting in secondary deviance.
        
        Further, societal reaction may reinforce the individuals outsider status and lead to them during a deviant subculture that offers support, role, models, and deviant career
        Young’s (1971) study of hippie marijuana users illustrate these processes.
        
        Drug use was initially peripheral to the hippies lifestyle (primary deviance), but police persecution of them as junkies (societal reaction) lead them to retreat into close groups, developing a deviant subculture, where drug use became a central activity (self-fulfilling prophecy)
        
        The control processes aimed at producing law abiding behaviour thus produced the opposite
    - - in a deviance amplification spiral, the attempt to control deviance leads to increasing rather than decreasing - resulting in greater attempts to control it, and in turn, yet more deviance, in an escalating spiral, as with the hippies described by Young.
        folk devils and moral panics Cohen’s 1972 study of the mods and rockers uses the concept of deviance amplification spiral:
        
        Media exaggeration and distortion began a moral panic, with growing public concern
        
        moral entrepreneurs call for a crackdown. Police responded by arresting more youths, causing further concern
        
        Demonising the mods and rockers as ‘folk devils’ marginalised them further, resulting in more deviance
        The work of Cohen and Young points to a key difference with functionalism:
        
        Functionalists see deviance producing social control
        
        Labelling theorists see control producing further deviance
    - - he argues that by labelling certain people as deviant, society actually encourages them to become more so: societal reaction causes secondary deviance
  - - - Douglas, 1967, argues that understand suicide, we must discover its meanings for the deceased. He rejects the use of official suicide statistics: they are constructs. The only tell us about the labels applied by coroners. To discover the deceased meanings, we must use qualitative methods. For example, the analysis of suicide notes or unstructured interviews with the deceaseds relatives.
    - - Atkinson, 1978, focuses on how coroners use, taken, for granted assumptions to construct a social reality. He found their ideas about a typical suicide affect their verdict.
    - - interactionist rejects the use of official statistics on mental illness as social constructs - just a record of the activities of doctors with the power to attach label such as ‘schizophrenic’
        
        Paranoia as a self-fulfilling prophecy: interactionist are interested in how a person comes to be labelled as mentally ill, and in the effects of this labelling. Lender shows how social socially awkward individuals may be labelled and excluded from groups. The individuals negative response gives the group reason to fear for his mental health, and this may lead to a medical label of paranoia. The label mental patient becomes his master status.
        
        institutionalisation: Goffman, 1961, so is that possible effects of being admitted into a total institution, such as a psychiatric hospital
        
        patients undergo a modification of the self in which there old identity is killed off and replaced by new one: inmate. This is achieved by degradation rituals e.g. Confiscation of personal effects
- - - - RRs reject the idea that structural or economic factors such as poverty are the cause of crime e.g. they point out that the old tend to be poor yet have a very low crime rate
        
        For RRs, crime is the product of three factors: biological differences, inadequate socialisation and the underclass, and rational choice to offend
    - - According to Wilson and Herrnstein (1985), crime si caused by a combination of biological and social factors
        
        Biological differences between individuals some people innately predisposed to commit crime, due to its personality traits, such as aggressiveness, risk taking or low intelligence, which RRs see as biologically determined
    - - elective socialisation decreases the risk of offending by teaching, self control and correct values. RRs see the nuclear family is the best agency of socialisation.
        
        However, according to Murray (1990) the nuclear family is being undermined by the welfare state, which is creating welfare dependency and encouraging the growth of an underclass who fail to socialise their children properly.
        
        Generous welfare provision has led to the growth of benefit dependent lone parent families, since my no longer need to take responsibility for supporting their family
        
        Absent fathers mean, the boys lack discipline and an appropriate role model, so they turn to delinquent role models and street gangs and gain status through crime rather than through supporting their families
    - - Clarkes (1980) no choice theory assumes individuals are rational beings with free will.
        
        Deciding to commit crime is a choice based on a rational calculation of the consequence
        
        If the rewards of the crime appear outweigh the costs, then people will be more likely to offend. RRs argue that the crime rate is high because the perceived costs are low
        Felsons routine activity theory argues that for crime to occur, there must be a motivated offender, a suitable target and the absence of a capable guardian. offenders act rationally, so the presence of a guardian is likely to deter them.
    - - RRs it is pointless trying to tackle the underlying causes of crime since these are hard to change. Instead they focus on the control and punishment of offenders:
        
        Wilson and Kelling (1982) argue that we must keep neighbourhoods orderly to prevent crime taking hold. Any sign of deterioration must be dealt with immediately.
        
        They advocate zero tolerance policing. The police should focus on controlling the street so law-abiding citizens feel safe. It was claimed success after its introduction in New York
        
        Crime, prevention policy should reduce the rewards of crime and increase the costs e.g. Target hardening, more use of prison
    - - ignores structural causes of crime, poverty. It is concerned almost solely with street crime, ignoring corporate crime which is more costly and harmful to the public
        
        Overemphasises control of disorderly neighbours, ignoring underline causes of neighbourhood decline
    - - RR sees crimes, especially street crime, as a growing problem
        Attitude to other theories RR believe other theories have failed to solve the problem of crime. They regard labelling theory and critical criminology as too sympathetic to the criminal and hostile to the police and courts
        Practical solutions RRs are mainly concerned with practical solutions to reduce crime. In their view, the best way to do so is through control and punishment, rather than by rehabilitating offenders or tackling causes such as poverty
  - - - LRs accuse other sociologist of not taking crime seriously:
        
        Marxists concentrate crimes of the powerful, but neglect working-class crime and its effects
        
        Neo Marxists romanticise working-class criminals, where, as in reality, they mostly victimise of the working class people
        
        Labelling theorists, see criminals as the victims of labelling. LRs argue that this neglect the real victims
        For LRs, taking crime seriously involves recognising that:
        
        It’s main victims are disadvantaged groups, who are more likely to be victimised and less likely to find the police take crimes against them seriously
        
        There has been a real increase in crime.
    - - relative deprivation
        
        For left realists, crime has its roots in relative deprivation - how deprive someone feels in relation to others. When they feel others unfairly have more, they may resort to crime to obtain what they feel entitled to
        There is a growing contrast between cultural inclusion and economic exclusion, and this increases relative deprivation:
        
        There is cultural inclusion: even the poor have access to the media is materialistic messages
        
        But there is economic exclusion of the poor from opportunities to gain the ‘glittering prizes’
      - subculture
        
        For left realists, subculture is a groups solution to the problem of relative deprivation.
        
        Some subcultural solutions, do not lead to crime
        
        Criminal subculture is subscribe to societies materialistic goods but legitimate opportunities are blocked, so they resort to crime
      - marginalisation
        
        Unlike groups such as workers, unemployed youths are marginalised. They have no organisation to represent them and no clear goals - just a sense of powerlessness, resentment and frustration, which they expressed through criminal means
    - - Young (2002) argues that in late modern society, the problem of working class crime is worse, due to:
        
        Harsher welfare policies, increased unemployment, job security, and poverty
        
        Destabilisation of the family and community life, weakening informal social controls
        Young notes other changes in late modernity:
        
        Crime is now found throughout society, not just at the bottom.
        
        There is now relative deprivation downwards e.g. Resentment against the unemployed as spongers; more hate crimes
        
        There is less consensus about what is acceptable and unacceptable behaviour, and informal controls, and now less effective as families and communities disintegrate
        
        The public are less tolerant and demand, harsher, formal controls by the state. Late modern society is a high crime society with a low tolerance for the crime.
    - - The LR solution to crime involves two policies: democratic policing and reducing social inequality
        Democratic policing: Kinsey, Lea and Young argue that police rely on the public for information, but they are losing public support, so the flow of information dries up, and they must rely instead on military policing, such a swamping an area
        
        To win public support, the police must become more accountable to local communities by involving them in deciding policing policies and priorities
        
        Crime control must also involve the multi agency approach, not just the police
        Reducing inequality
        
        For LR, the main solution to crime is to remove its underlying cause: social inequality
        
        They cool for major. Structural changes to tackle discrimination, inequality of opportunity, and unfairness of rewards, and provide decent jobs and housing for all
    - - it, except the authorities definition of crime has been street crime of the poor and ignores the harm done to the poor by the powerful. Marxists argue that it fails to explain corporate crime.
        
        It over predicts the amount of working-class crime
        
        Understanding offenders motives require qualitative data, but left realists rely on quantitive data from victim surveys
    - - LR has developed since the 1980s. Like RR, it sees crime as a real problem. However, while RRs are New Right conservatives, LRs are socialists
        
        Like marxists, LRs are opposed to the inequality of capitalist society and see is the root cause of crime
        
        Unlike marxists, they are reformist, not revolutionary socialists: they believe gradual reforms of the only realistic way to achieve equality
        
        While marxists believe only a future revolution, can bring a crime free society, LRs believe we need realistic solutions for reducing it now