Paper 2- Crime:

Question 1

Merton- Strain theory:

Answer 1

Theory: Functionalist
* People belived in socially constructed goals- e.g. the American Dream
* The goals put a strain on people as they may find it hard to reach them legally
* Therefore, people may resort to crime to reach them. This may lead to anomie.
* Merton responded to soially constructed goals in 5 ways: Conformity, innovation, ritualism, retreatism and rebellion.

Question 2

Howard Becker (interactionist):

Answer 2

• Society creates rules for everyone and anyone who acts out of these rules is labelled as deviant.
• Powerful groups, such as the police use stereoypes and misconceptions about their views of criminality
• They then get mistreated e.g. stopped and searched, and then are labelled with criminal records
• This leads to them developing deviant careers
• The deviant label can become a master status (main identity) e.g. ex-convict
• Labelling can lead to the self-fulfilling prophecy where they continue to behave this way.

Question 3

Heidonsohn (Feminist)- control theory:

Answer 3

• She argued women commit less crrime as they are more closely socially controlled in society
• In a patriachal society, women have stronger social control placed on them, reducing oppurtunities for them to commit crime
• At home: women are controlled by domestic responsibilities, at work: by fear of damaging reputation and in public: fear of male violence.

Question 4

Pat Carlen (Feminist)- Class & Gender deal:

Answer 4

• She argued that w/c women may turn to crime if they did not receive the rewards promised to them by society. They make two deals with society for conforming: ‘class deal’ (money & mateial items from working hard) and ‘gender deal’ (happy domestic life with husband and children)
• She found that these women committed crime when these rewards were blocked due to: poverty, living in care and drug addiction
• Therefore they turned to crime when the rewards outweighed the risks.

Question 5

Cohen (Functionalist)- Subcultural theory:

Answer 5

• He argued that delinquency is carried out by groups, not individuals and that the groups often commit non-utilitarian crimes (crimes that don’t have rational goals, bit are simply just done for the ‘hell of it’) e.g. vandalism
• W/c boys experience status frustration due to educational failure which is a result of cultural deprivation.
• They join delinquent subcultures where they develop deviant careers and earn prestige and status in their sub-culture and work their way up in hierarchy.

Question 6

Sutherland:

Answer 6

• Created the term white collar crime
• Identified 4 types:
  1. Occupational- done during work, e.g. fraud
  2. Proffesional- done as a career
  3. Corporate- done by big businesses to increase profit
  4. Computer- crime done by comouters, e.g. fraud

Question 7

Chivalry thesis:

Answer 7

• The common belief that the CJS is more lenient on women
• Woman are seen as vulnerable, look ‘less guilty’ and are in need of protection

Question 8

The MacPherson report (1999):

Answer 8

• A report on an investigation of institutional racism within the police after the murder of Stephen Lawrence
• The report found widespread racism in the police (labelling ethnic minorities).

Question 9

Hall et al (Marxist):

Answer 9

• The media created a moral panic to diguise problems in society (mainly due to capitalism)
• They created the ‘myth of the black mugger’ where black people were seen as folk devils and were depicted for the main reason for crime
• This created a false class consciousness.

Question 10

White collar crime:

Answer 10

M/c crime is costing Britain £140 billion a year- 10 times as much as burgulary.

Question 11

Gender & crime:

Answer 11

Prsison stats as of June 2021:
* Men- 74,957
* Women- 3175

Question 12

Ethnicity & crime:

Answer 12

As of 2019, BAME groups made up:
* 16% of the population
* 27% of the prison population
This means that BAME groups are over-represented in prison.

Question 13

Police make-up:

Answer 13

As of 2019:
* 93% of judges were white
* 93% of police officers were white
This is contrroversial as 40% of Londoners are from BAME groups, but only 7% of the Metropolitan police force are from BAME groups.

Question 14

Age & crime:

Answer 14

Peak age of offending 17. This shows that 17 year olds aare more likely to commit crime. Reasons for this include peer pressure and wanting the latest ‘must have’ items.

Question 15

Victim surveys:

Answer 15

Data from CSEW shows that only 4 in 10 crimes that are reported are actually recorded. This highlights that there is a ‘dark figure of crime’ in the official statistics of crime.