revision Flashcards
theories views on official statistics
functionalism - statistics are accurate/social facts early functionalist subcultural theories - statistics are accurate/why males under 25 are more than likely to form criminal subculture. interactionism - statistics are not accurate/a social construction, something created by police, labelling. Marxism - official statistics not accurate/ made by the ruling class, makes working class criminals. feminism - official statistics not accurate/ does not reflect the true scales of crime against women like rape or domestic abuse left realists - official statistics are accurate/black ethnic and working class people do commit more crime because they are more disadvantaged than other groups new criminology - official statistics are accurate/ mixture of marxism and interactionism. right realism - official statistics are accurate
alternatives to official statistics
self report studies
victim surveys
local victim surveys
how does the media portray crime?
over reports violent and sexual crimes
exaggerates how police are successful in dealing with crimes
exaggerate the risk of being a victim, giving the impression that being a female, elderly or middle class is at most risk. statistics disagree.
neglects ordinary crimes like theft and over emphasises extrodenary crimes like child abuse or terrorism as it provides more coverage.
what is the agenda settings?
when the media talks about crime in a certain way, e.g. people that commit benefit fraud are ‘work shy scroungers’ stealing from the public. what’s not discussed is the lack of job opportunities and why some jobs are low paid. sets limit on what should or what should not be discussed. hierarchy of access to the media in certain views, heard from primary definers, official views of the police, courts and politicians not those who are deviants or criminal themselves.
deviency amplifications
media identifies a group as a threat to society, known as the folk devils.
media presents this group in a negative and stereotyped way, exaggerate the scale of the problem
police and the public condemn the group, calls for something to be done. this has caused a moral panic.
causes more stricter policing and introducing new laws.
‘mods and rockers’ presented by cohen to show how the media created it by making fictional violent accidents/ news on papers printed stories about the mods and rockers, conflict between them, young people identified as either mods or rockers/police and public sensitvie to the issue/media creates exaggerated stories/police overresponed/harsh punishments/moral panic developed.
c. left realists say moral panic is a reasonable reaction from the pubic to a real threat of crime, not an over reaction.
media only focuses on some issues but not other crimes to amplify devience and create moral panics i.e. tax fraud or corportate crimes than benefit fraud or street crimes.
public are aware the media can be exaggerative/ due to new media tech provide vast range of media reports/ public distrusts mainstream media reporting.
why do media portray devience in this way?
marxist theory - those in the media represents the ruling class, deliberately distort devience in order to maintain status in society. ensures that normality is continued and those that threaten against it are ridiculed and marginalised.
hegemonic theory - this process is an unconcious one, media portrays devience in a way because behaviour is strange to an average journalist. journalists comes from ruling class viewpoint of society, ideas of newsworthiness and public interest. mc are dominant and wc are alienated.
pluralists, areas of devience in other areas, media gives the public what they want.
interactionism
often referred as the labelling theory,
an action theory so believes that people choose to commit crimes
c. structual theorists would critcise this view and say structures like capitalism force people into committing crimes.
looks at crime and devience at a micro scale
c. generalisation cannot be made.
see official statistics as a social construction, believe that they are created by the police and courts stereotypical view of a typical criminal
c. other theorisits disagree, groups such as black ethnic people or working class people do commit most crimes, therefore statistics can be true and reflects the true meaning.
interactionists believe that most people do commit devient or criminal act at some point in their lives, difference being is that criminals are caught and labelled whilst the rest of society may not. this label affects how a person is treated by others and how they see themselves.
Deviant career
Where a person takes on a deviant identity given to them, becker stresses that there is nothing inevitable or deterministic about deviant career, a person can reject the label and escAPE the deviant career.
Effects of labelling
Achieving master status can impact the person’s life/both how they behave towards themselves and how other behave with them. Produce a self fulfilling prophecy
Case study - Rosenhan got his students to claim that they were hearing voices so they were admitted to the mental hospital/once accepted students became normal and answered questions honestly/despite being diagnosed with schizophrenia/treated as though whatever they said was further evidence of their insanity/neglected by staff/students could not behave normally in an environment where those around them did not respond in a normal manner.
Lemerts primary and secondary devience
Primary/the act a person commits
Secondary/the reaction of other people to the act.
Interactionists believe the secondary devience/reaction of the people is seen as the most important that creates devience
Case study saints and roughnecks/by Chambliss/working class the roughnecks and middle class saints both gangs/committed many criminal acts like vandalism, theft,drunk driving/roughnecks labelled by community as troublemakers/saints were seen as the good boys
c. one member of the roughnecks rejected the label and became a college sports teacher.
Master status from becker
Becker/how certain labels are applied on mentally ill, child abusers etc./ person could be a husband, neighbour or an office worker/actions the person performed in the past is neglected because of their master status label/ jimmy Savile a tv celebrity now a peadophile
Critcisims of interactionism
Becker seems to suggest that if people are not caught and labelled then they are not criminal and deviant. However if you still committed and crime and got away with it then you are criminal and it will affect your identity.
Labelling has been accused for being to deterministic/ once a person has been labelled then they have no choice for it to become a self fulfilling prophecy and becomes deviant.
Labelling theory has failed to explain why some people are labelled and others are not/Marxists argue that it ignores power/working class criminals are always labelled as criminal.
