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Crime And Deviance Flashcards

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1
Q

What is functionalists view of crime?

A

That it is inevitable and universal - Durkheim believes it’s a part of normal society

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2
Q

Durkheim positive functions of crime?

A

1) Boundary maintenance- crime produces a reaction from society - punishments issued to reinforce social solidarity
2) Adaptation and change - all change starts with a deviant act - if these challenges couldn’t happen society would be unable to make necessary adaptations

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3
Q

Other functions of crime

A

Davis - prostitution acts as safety valve for release for men’s sexual frustration without threatening monogamous nuclear family

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4
Q

Criticisms of Durkheim

A
  • says there is a required amount of deviance for society but doesn’t say how much that is
  • looks at the functions crime serves but not it’s affects in people in society
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5
Q

Functionalism: Mertons strain theory

A

People engage in deviant behaviour to achieve success and goals by illegitimate means if can’t do it legally

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6
Q

Functionalism: what is deviance the result of?

A

Merton states it’s a result of:
- Goals that culture encourages individuals to achieve
- what the institutional structure of society allows them to achieve legitimately

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7
Q

What is the American Dream?

A

Society is meritocratic - opportunities for all who make an effort - reality is different many disadvantaged groups are denied opportunities leading to strain Merton calls “strain to anomie”

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8
Q

Deviant adaptations to strain

A

Positions in social structure affects the way they adapt or respond to the strain, 5 diff types of adaptation:
- Conformity
- Innovation
- Ritualism
- Retreatism
- Rebellion

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9
Q

Evaluation of Merton

A

Criticised for:
- Taking official statistics at face value - over-represent working class crime
- Mar it’s argue it ignored ruling class power to enforce laws

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10
Q

A.K Cohen: status frustration

A

Deviance mainly lower class - focuses on working class boys and argues they gave anomie in middle class school systems making them bottom of the official status hierarchy - this is known as status frustration resulting in joining delinquent subcultures

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11
Q

Alternative status hierarchy

A

Cohen - delinquent subcultures invert mainstream values this offers an “alternative status hierarchy” where they can create their own opportunities to achieve and win status from their peers through delinquent actions

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12
Q

Cloward and Ohlin: 3 subcultures

A
  • Criminal subcultures - give youths an apprenticeship in criminality
  • Conflict subcultures - gangs are formed active through violence
  • Retreatist subcultures - those who failed legitimately and illegitimately “double failures”
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13
Q

Evaluation of Cloward and Ohlin

A
  • Ignore the wider power structure - who enforces laws
  • Miller - deviance is widespread in lower class but argues it arises out of attempts to achieve own goals not mainstream ones
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14
Q

Institutional anomie theory

A

Messner and Rosenfield - focuses on American dream - its obsession with money success puts pressure on crime as encourages people to do anything to pursue wealth

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15
Q

Interactionism and labelling

A

Don’t seek causes of criminal behaviour they ask his and why some people’s actions come to be labelled as criminal

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16
Q

Social construction of crime

A

Becker - deviant is simply someone to whom the label has been successfully applied and deviant behaviour is simply behaviour that has been labelled as such

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17
Q

What are “moral entrepreneurs”?

A

People who lead a moral crusade to change the law results in 2 effects:
- New group of outsiders (outlaws)
- Expansion of social control agency (police etc)

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18
Q

Juvenile delinquency - Platt

A

Argues the idea was created as result of upper class campaigns from Victorian moral entrepreneurs aimed at Epcot etching young people at risk - juveniles established as separate category of offender

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19
Q

Who gets labelled?

A

Not everyone who commits a crime gets punished for it this depends on factors such as:
- Interactions with agencies of social control
- Appearance background etc
- Situation and circumstances of offence

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20
Q

Cicourel - negotiation of justice

A

Found that officer’s typifications (stereotypes) cause them to concentrate on certain types of people - showed class bias as working class fit the officers types - justice not fixed but negotiable

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21
Q

Topic versus resource

A

Cicourel argues statistics don’t give a valid picture of the patterns of crime and cannot be used as a resource

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22
Q

Social construction of crime statistics

A

Internationalist see statistics of crime as constructed, the outcomes depend on the label attached - as a result statistics only tell us about the activities of police and prosecutors rather than about crime

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23
Q

“Dark figure of crime”

A

Difference between statistics and “real” rate of crime - unsure how much goes unreported

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24
Q

Primary and secondary deviance

A

Lemert- primary deviance is deviant acts not publicly labelled unlikely to have a single cause, whereas secondary deviance is a result of societal reaction of labelling also known as a “master status”

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25
Deviant career
Secondary deviance likely to provoke further reactions from society leading to more deviance and a “deviant career”
26
Deviance amplification spiral
Labelling theorists - process in which the attempt to control deviance leads to an increase in the level of deviance - leads to more control attempts and more deviance and so on
27
Deviance amplification spiral: Moral panic and folk devils
Cohen - compares the spiral to devils and panics as the distorted reports of increasing crime caused more crackdown in policing provoking public concern and an upward spiral of deviance
28
Reintegrative shaming
Braithwaite - positive role for labelling by distinguishing between 2 types of shaming (negative labelling): - Disintegrative shaming - not only crime but criminal labelled - Reintegrative shaming - labels act not actor Argues Reintegrative shaming allows for readmitting delinquents into society without repeating however disintegrative shaming results highly in repeat offenders
29
Suicide
Durkheim - used statistics to fund causes of suicide in how effectively society integrated and regulated their behaviour however interaction it’s reject this view and argue we need to study its meanings to understand suicide
30
Douglas: the meaning of suicide
Interactionist approach - critical of official statistics as they are socially constructed e.g whether a deathis alanelled a suicide is up to the coroner, relatives friends doctors etc
31
Reasons suicide is socially constructed
- Depends on the coroner and people around victim as to whether it is ruled suicide - Religious background may cause family to be reluctant to rule death as suicide Therefore statistics tell us nothing about meanings behind suicide
32
Mental illness
Interactionists reject official statistics on mental illness because they regard them as social constructs - psychiatric have the power to attach labels
33
Paranoia - self fulfilling prophecy
Lemerts study of paranoia - notes people don’t easily fit into groups others label them as weird and exclude them they then receive the label of “mental patient” (master status)
34
Institutionalisation
Gorman - study of asylums shows possible effects of being admitted to a total institution, under admission inmate gets rid of their old identity and applies a new “inmate” one
35
Evaluation of labelling
Shows law is not fixed but constructed. Criticised for: - Too deterministic - implying once label applied deviance is inevitable - focuses less on serious crimes
36
Right realism
See crime as a real and growing problem that destroys communities undermines social cohesion and threatens societys work ethic - no solution to rising crime rate
37
Right realists criticisms of others
Criticise other theories for failing to offer any practical solutions to the problems of rising crime
38
The causes of crime
Right realists reject idea of Marxists - for realists crime is product of 3 factors: - individual biological differences - personality traits - inadequate socialisation - decreases risk - individuals rational choice to offend - individuals have free will and power of reason (rational choice theory)
39
Criticisms of right realists
- ignores wider structural causes e.g poverty - views criminals as rational actors freely choosing crime conflicts with claim that their behaviour is determined by socialisations
40
Tackling crime
Right realists seek practical measures to make crime less attractive - focus on control containment and punishment. Crime prevention policies should therefore reduce the rewards and increases the costs of crime to offender.
41
Zero tolerance
Wilson and Kelling - essential to maintain the orderly character of neighbourhoods to prevent crime taking hold - any deterioration should be dealt with asap
42
Young - zero tolerance a myth
Argues the zero tolerance success was a myth made by politicians to take credit for falling crime rates - crime rates in New York already falling without zero tolerance
43
Young - “define deviance up”
Argues police need arrests to justify existence but New yours shortage of serious crime led to police “define deviance up” - took to arresting people for minor acts
44
Left realism
See society as an unequal capital one - reformist and believe in gradual change rathe than overthrowing capitalism as a way to achieve equality - believe we need explanations of crime that will lead to practical strategies for reducing it now rather than waiting to abolish crime
45
Taking crime seriously
Central idea behind left realism is that crime is real problem and affects disadvantaged groups accuse Marxists, neo-Marxists and labelling theorists of not taking crime seriously
46
The chivalry thesis
Argues most criminal justice agents are men and men are socialised to act in a chivalrous way towards women - Pollak argues men are protective to women and criminal justice sustej is lenient exaggerating gender differences
47
Explaining female crime
3 main explanations for gender differences: - sex role theory - control theory - liberation thesis
48
Functionalist sex role theory
Different socilaisation of men and women - boys taught to be tough and aggressive meaning more likely to be criminals. Parsons - difference of crime to gender roles of nuclear family - instrumental and expressive roles meaning boys reject feminine models of behaviour and act in anti social ways for masculinity
49
Sandra walkate criticisms of sex role theory
Biooogical assumptions, argues Parsosn assumes that women best suit expressive role as they bear children
50
Heidensohn: patriarchal control
Women’s behaviour is conformist - commit fewer less crimes than men because patriarchy has control of women reducing opportunities to offend - men have control over women at home in public and at work as they are threatened by them in violent ways
51
Liberation thesis
Adler - women become liberated from patriarchy their crimes become frequent and as serious as men’s - women’s liberation has led to new rule of female crime and a rise in crime rates. Argues changes to society led to changes in women’s offending behaviour began to adopt male roles in work and crime - commit more “male” crimes
52
Criticisms of liberation thesis
- female crime rate rising since 1950s long before liberation movement - most female criminals are working class - least likely to be influenced by women’s liberation
53
Ethnicity and criminalisation
Significant ethnic differences in criminal justice system some being over represented e,g black people. - black people make up 3% of population but 13.1% of prison population - Asians make up 6.5% of populations but 7.7% of prison - white people under-represented
54
Alternative sources to statistics
- victim surveys - gain info about ethnicity and offending from surveys can identify patterns but have limitations e.g rely on victims memories of events and only conversation personal crimes which make upa small amount of crime overall - self report studies - individuals disclose own violent behaviour, Graham and Bowling found blacks (43%) whites (44%) had similar offending rates other ethnic groups had lower - Evidence on ethnicity is inconsistent
55
Racism in justice system
- policing - allegations of oppression including stop and searches, arrests and cautions, prosecutions and convictions
56
Racism: Stop and search
Ethnic minorities more likely to be stopped and searched compares to white people black people are 7x more likely to be stopped and searched and Asians twice as likely
57
Stop and search patterns
- police racisms - macpherson reports on police investigation of racism murder of black teenager concluded it was institutional racism - Philips and bowling pointed out police have negative stereotypes of ethnic minorities
58
Media representations of crime
Crime and deviance makes up large proportion of media coverage - however give distorted image of crime: - overrepresent viokent and sexual crime - reported 46% of crime covered was violent or sexual whereas only made up 3% of actual crime reported - exaggerate the risk of victimisation especially for women
59
The global criminal economy
Held et al - globalisation of crime has spread transnational organised crime - globalisation creates new opportunities for crime new means of committing and new offences as well as cyber crime. Has both a demand and supply side - couldn’t function without supply providing goods (drugs etc)
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61
Surveillance theories
The panopticon - Foucault - design for prisons where prisoner has cell of which guards can see them but prisoners cannot see guards - leads to them havubg to behave at all times as don’t know when they are being watched

Crime and deviance (2 decks)

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