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Sociology of Crime and Deviance, Retreatist subculture - Coggle Diagram
Sociology of Crime and Deviance
Functionalism
Durkheim
Crime is needed for society to function:
Inevitable
Builds morals and punishment
Reinforces the value consensus
Functionalist evaluations (in order)
Durkheim
Did not look at different types of crime and deviance
Merton
No explanation of non-utilitarian crime
Cohen
Only focuses on non-utilitarian crime
Cloward and Ohlin
Generalising, do explanation of middle class crime
Merton
'The American Dream' - working hard to achieve:
Cars, wealth, education, branded clothes, 'white picket fence', beautiful children
Not everyone can achieve the American Dream - turn to utilitarian crime to 'become successful', unlawful
Cloward and Ohlin
Wrote 'Delinquency and opportunity' 1961
Criminal subculture
Allows the young to learn how to commit utilitarian crime
Establishes a criminal hierarchy
Gives criminal training to younger
Conflict subculture
Social disorganisation
Violence allows a means of relieving frustration and new status
Paul Willis
Anti-school subcultures
Cohen
Subculture strain
Cohen - subculture strain
Status frustration
- upset with your position in society
Example
Paul Willis - the lads research
A structural theory - argues criminal behaviour is the result of the class structure
crime is collective
Working class boys are denied cultural goals
Marxism
Marxism
Criminogenic capitalism
Capitalist system will always have crime, it cannot function or exist without crime - inevitable - exploitation of the working class
Crime causes consuming > consumer culture > utilitarian crime
Example
Grenfell Tower
Bourgeoise wanted money more than the protection of the lower classes
Companies aware of the dangerous cladding and still chose to use the material
72 people died in the disaster
Lauren Snider
Laws passed reflect the wishes and ideologies of the ruling class
Selective law enforcement
Higher rates of street crimes are prosecuted compared to 'white collar' crimes
More police patrols in poor areas
Marxist overview
Middle class crime is:
Under-policed
Underestimated
Under-punished
(Boris Johnson, Covid Party)
Ruling class make laws that benefit themselves and not the working class
Riots and protests are the only sense of power and freedom for poor classes - status frustration
Capitalism is greed
Non-Utilitarian explanation
Examples
Joy-riding, Graffiti, Arson
Low income and status leads to status frustration and mindless crimes, to feel some sense of power over the powerful, not for the purpose to gain
Crimes that do not gain a 'reward', such as robbing or fraud will reward the criminal with money, common in the poorer working class due to not being able to live without crimes like these
Gordon
Crime is a rational response to the capitalist system, found in all societal classes
Official statistics make it appear to be largely a working-class phenomenon
Neo Marxism
Paul Gilroy - Myth of black criminality
Crime is a political response to a racist society and oppression
Frustration of racism
Rastafarianism
Symbolic resistance against white power
Distorting 'white religion' against the oppressor
Media blamed young black men for majority of crimes: "Crimes are not due to poor socialism or criminal subculture"
Developed early 1970s
Society changes
Taylor, Walton and Young
- 1973
Critical of traditional Marxist explanations
Critical criminologists
'Critical Criminologists'
Shared goals of traditional Marxism - classless society
Believe crime is deliberate and conscious
Crime is political
Want to provide a fully social theory of crime and deviance
State and street crime
Symbolic Resistance
The oppressed do not need to challenge the powerful in 'obvious ways'
Symbolic gestures
Examples
Suffragettes, illegal, women's rights, burning bras in streets
Rosa parks, sitting on a bus, black rights
Stuart Hall - policing the crisis
'mugging' has become morally panicked, labelled onto black youth,
'muggers' act as a scapegoat for white collar crimes.
Moral panic
The media describes a problem to be bigger than it really is, causing the panic and it actually becomes an issue due to the fear.
Criticisms
Does not provide evidence that this has happened, the fear of 'mugging' is not panicky, but realistic.
Differences and Similarities
Marxism is deterministic
Crime has a motive
People are not passive puppets
Individuals should not be labelled
People have a choice to commit crime
Differences
Similarities
Capitalism = Exploitation
Inequality because of capitalism
working class are over criminalised
Law is made in the interest of ruling class
Classless society reduces crime
Measuring crime
Official statistics from home office
Number of people in prison
Victim surveys (questionnaire)
Report study
Dark figure of crime
Crimes that are not reported
Why?
Shame, embarrassment
Little care
Danger of further crime
Not taken seriously
Victimless
Police also under-record crimes:
Unsolvable
Little care
Value consensus
- (Parsons) It is important for societies to have common beliefs and norms to live with and work towards
Interactionalism
Primary and secondary deviance
Primary
The act, not publicly labelled as deviant
Secondary
The way society reacts, creating the deviant label and the 'master status'
Becker - labelling
Labels, self-fulfilling prophecy, master status
master status is the one label that society will know you as: shoplift, your master status is criminal.
Retreatist subculture
'Double failures'
Failed to earn criminal status and working class jobs
Turning to illegal drug use