lesson 11 & 12 : patterns and trends in youth deviance

Question 1

what are ASBOs?

Answer 1

anti-social behavioural orders - issued for petty offences such as graffiti, drinking in the street and are associated with youth deviance

Question 2

what is the peak offending age for males?

Answer 2

18

Question 3

what is the peak offending age for females?

Answer 3

15

Question 4

what is the most common youth crime?

Answer 4

• theft

- stolen goods

Question 5

what proportion of youth offenders are male?

Answer 5

80%

Question 6

what is the most significant risk factor for committing crime?

Answer 6

being a male

Question 7

what did smart (1976) say?

Answer 7

young males have less informal control than females so they commit more deviant acts

Question 8

what did muncie (2004) say?

Answer 8

notions of femininity are opposed to criminal behaviour, meaning females less likely to commit crime

Question 9

what did becker state?

Answer 9

males more likely to be labelled by police due to labelling theory

Question 10

what is the main factor for women committing crime?

Answer 10

being in deprivation

Question 11

what crimes do females commonly commit?

Answer 11

• shoplifting
• theft
• violence

Question 12

what did messerschmiat (1993) state about youth deviance and class?

Answer 12

talks about working and middle class males from different ethnic groups being drawn to commit different types of crime

Question 13

what crimes do white working class youth commonly commit?

Answer 13

vandalism, minor theft and alcohol related offences

Question 14

what crimes do minority ethnic groups commonly commit?

Answer 14

acts related to street gangs

Question 15

what crimes do the middle class tend to commit?

Answer 15

acts based around recreational drug use

Question 16

what did bowling and grahams (1995) study show?

Answer 16

used a sample of 1700 participants with a further 800 from ethnic minorities. age group studied was 14-25yr olds. all participants asked to self report the number and types of crime they committed during the last year.

• 44% white, 43% black people, 30% indian, 28% pakistani, 13% bangladeshi admitted to committing one or more crimes
• white males and females admitted to using drugs more than any other group, whilst bangladeshi people had lowest rate of drug use
• white people commit more crime than other ethnic groups in general

Question 17

what did farrington and west’s (1994) longitudinal study show?

Answer 17

• used self reports to plot amount and type of offences of a sample of participants over time
• found 1/3 of males upto age 32, had been convicted for at least one criminal offence

cambridge study set up in 1960 was set up to examine self-reports and offending :

• 400 males born between 1951-1954 were investigated
• 90% admitted in self reports to committing at least one crime
• tended to specialise in certain crimes as they got older
• take off age for offending around 14, decreased by age 23
• theft, burglary and criminal damage declined as reached their 20s
• assault, drug offences and fraud did not decline with age
• first conviction was around age 17 on average
• low family income, poor housing and large family size seemed to be main variables that helped to predict social characteristics of offenders (links to social class)

Question 18

give three evaluations points of farrington and wests (1994) research.

Answer 18

1. self-reports rely on the offender telling the truth which can be problematic. if participants led then results would be invalid when investigating social class (-)
2. longitudinal research is good. follows individuals through life to look for factors that lead them to offend. farrington found that males who had a father with unstable work were more likely to offend and commit crime by the time they were 18. longitudinal studies can increase verstehen. (+)
3. research is conducted over long period of time and therefore likely to have high dropout rate. sample may become smaller and make results more skewed and biased when looking at crime. (-)

Question 19

which social class is most likely to be deviant and why?

Answer 19

working class as more likely to have a monetary motive

Question 20

give four stats about ethnicity and youth deviance.

Answer 20

• stop and search : 65% black, 23% asian, 28% mixed, 15% white
• black youth 7x more likely to be stopped
• black youth 3x more likely to be arrested
• arrests for asians increased 13% over last 5 years

Question 21

give a stat about gender and youth deviance.

Answer 21

85% of children receiving a caution or sentence were males aged 10 - 17