Criminology

Functionalsim - Durkheim

See society as a stable structure based on shared norms, values and beliefs about what is right and wrong. This produces social solidarity or integration, where all members of society feel they belong
Some crime is inevitable

Functions of crime:
Boundary miantenncy - unites society's members against the wrong doer, reminding them of the boundary between right and wron, and reaffirming their shared values
Social change - for society to progress, individuals with new ideas must challenge existing norms and values, and at first this will be seen as deviance
Safety valve - to protects other institutions in society eg. prostitution enables meant to release sexual frustrations without treating the nuclear family
Warning light - deviance indicates institutions isn't working properly eg. high truancy rates could indicate a problem with society

Functionalism - Merton's strain theory

Crime happens because society is not equal. Society values 'money success' or wealth as the goal people should pursue and tells them they should achieve this through legtatmate means such as hard work at school and in a career.
However, not everyone has this opportunity do this due to factors such as poverty or inadequate school so to deviance to achieve

4 ways this strain as adapted to:
Innovation - accepts the goal but find illegal means of achieving them
Ritualism - give up for striving success. They plod along in a dead end job, but obey the rules/laws
Retreatism - dropouts whoo reject both the goals and means of achieving them. Includes drunks, vagrants and drug addicts
Rebellion - rejects the existing goals and means in society, replacing them with the new ones with the aim of changing society. Includes terrorists, radicals etc.

Subcultural theories of crime

Delinquent subcultures are groups whose norms and values are deviant. Subcultural theories apply Merton's idea of a strain between goals and means. Enable gang members to gain status by illegitimate means

Albert Cohen - Status Frustration Cihens argues with Merton that deviance results fro the lower classes failure to achieve by legitamte means .

  • However Cohen sees subcultural deviance as a group response to failure, not just an individual one
  • He focuses on non-utilitarian crimes (financial gain) such as vandalism
  • Cohen believes that because most working class boys can't achieve status at school, because teachers often regard them as low ability and place them in bottom sets/streams this leads to them to suffer from 'status frustration'
  • The subculture offers them an alternative status hierarchy where they can win respect from their peers by delinquent actions and inverting society's values

Cloward and Ohlin - Three subcultures - argued that different neighbourhoods give rise to different types of deviant subculutres:

  • Criminal subcultures - arise in ar4eas where there is a longstanding professional criminal network. They select suitable youths for an 'apprenticeship' in utilitarian crime and a future criminal career
  • Conflict subcultures - arise where the only criminal opportunities ware within street gangs. Violence provides a release for frustration and a source of status earned by winning territory from rival gangs
    Rertreatist subcultures - made up of dropouts who have failed in both the legitimate and illegitimate opportunity structures. They are often based on drug use

crime control and punishment policies

Policies to tackle poverty - better welfare benefits, wages and job security would reduce crime by giving everyone a more equal chance of achieving success by legal means

Equal opportunities in school - treating working class pupils equally would reduce their failure rate, making them less likely to suffer status frustration and join deviant cultures

Eductation in prison - half of UK prisoners having a reading age of 11. Better education in prisons would help inmates gain skills to get a good job and go straight

Effective? Evidence shows that anti-povertypolicies face a positive effect. Societies that spend more on welfare jail fewer people. Thod with greater inequality have higher crime rates

Intercationsim

See our interactions with one another based on meaning s or labels. For example criminal is a label that some people may attach to others in their intercations. 'crime 'and 'criminals' are social constructs

Labelling theory states that no act is deviant or criminal itself. It only becomes so when we create rule sand apply them to others eg. smoking cannabis only counts as a crime if society decides to make a law criminalising it

  • Therefore to understand criminality, we must focus on how certain actions and people get labelled as criminal in the first place

Differential enforcement of there law - Intercationsist ague that social control agencies such as the police label certain groups as criminal. This results in differential enforcement - where the law is enforced more against one group or another

  • Piliavin and Broar found that police's decisions to arrest were used on stereotypical ideas about a person's manner, dress, gender, class, ethnicity, time and place
  • Similarly, Cicourel found that police use typifications of the 'typical delinquent'. Working class ethnic minority youths were more likely to be stopped, charged and arrested

Self-fulfilling prophecy

Primary deviance - acts that are not publicly labelled. Those who commit these acts do not usually see themselves as criminals
Secondary deviance - results from labelling as people may treat the offender solely in terms of the label, which becomes their master status. This status overrides all other statuses such as father, parent, work collegue

As a result, the offender may be rejected by society and forced into the company of other criminals, joining a deviant subculture

  • Prison is an extreme example of this because the offender is excluded from normal society and pkaced with others who confirm their criminal identitm, provide them with role models and teach them criminal skills
  • What has happened is a self-fulfilling prophecy - the individual has now become what the label said they were. The result is that further offending is more likely

Right realism

Right wing conservative political outlook