The Social Construction of Crime

- Crime is socially constructed - an act only becomes a crime when the label is attached to it.

- Newburn suggests that crime is a label attached to behaviour which is prohibited by the state and has a legal penalty behind it.

- Crime covers a wide range of behaviour so is difficult to develop explanations that account for the vast diversity of act labelled as criminal.

The Social Construction of Deviance

- Plummer distinguishes between societal and situational deviance. Societal = acts that society see as deviant. Situational = depends on context or location. 

- These two concepts suggest that what is regarded as deviant may vary between societies, cultures, contexts and locations, vary between groups and change over time.

Functionalist and subcultural Theories

- Crime and deviance arises from structure of society.

- Durkheim = crime is inevitable as not everyone is equally committed to norms and values.

- Crime performs necessary and beneficial functions of;

     - Boundary Maintenance

     - Adaption & Change

     - Safety Valve

     - Warning Device

Strain Theory and Anomie

- Merton suggests that social order is based on consensus around social goals.

- In an unequal society, not all individuals have the same opportunities of realising these goals by approved means.

- This means they face strain or tension between the aspirations and the legitimate opportunities for achieving them. This leads to anomie.

- Merton argues those who face anomie show four modes of adaption (innovation, ritualism, retreatism and rebellion)

Mode of Adaption

Conformity = accept goals and accept means.

Innovation = accept goals and reject means.

Ritualism = reject goals and accept means.

Retreatism = reject goals and reject means.

Rebellion = rejection of mainstream values and means to replace with new ones.

Evaluation of Merton's Strain Theory

A. It provides an explanation for different forms of deviance,

D. It takes for granted a consensus around means and goals.

D. It exaggerates working class crime and ignored the power of the rullin

D. It offers no explanation of non-utilitarian crime.

D. Doesn't explain why most people who face strain don't turn to crime/deviance.

Subcultural Theories

- Explain deviance in terms of how groups rather than individuals respond to the strain they're facing in achieving social goals.

- Focus on male working class juvenile delinquents who constitute the largest group who are labelled criminals and deviants.

Cohen's Status Frustration

- Cohen argues that working class male youths accept mainstream goals but cultural and material deprivation block legitimate means of achieving them, leading to status frustration.

- They react by forming a subculture that reverses mainstream values and replaces them with delinquent values. This gives working class youth a chance to achieve status in their peer group.

Evaluation of Merton's Status Frustration Theory

A. Cohen's theory explains working class delinquency as a group response rather than an individual response.

D. It wrongly assumes that delinquents originally accept the mainstream goals against which they react.

Cloward and Ohlin's Subcultural Theory

Delinquent subcultures.

Criminal = from a criminal culture and hierarchy of adult crime. Adults provide training and opportunities for aspiring young criminals to achieve material goals be illegitimate means,

Conflict = high population turnaround area, social disorganisation. Young people respond by achieving status through violence, gang crime and street crime.

Retreatist = those who fail in mainstream society and incriminal cultures and retreat to drug and alcohol addiction.

Evaluation of Cloward and Ohlin

A. Cloward and Ohlin give insights into why working class delinquency takes different forms in different social circumstances.

D. They exaggerate the differences between the three subcultures.

D. David Matza argues delinquents aren't committed to subcultures.

D. They don't show crossovers in the subcultures.

Criticisms of Functionalist Explanations of Crime and Deviance

- They assume there is some initial value consensus from which people deviate from.

- They ignore white collar and corporate crime.

- Rely on the pattern of crime shown in official statistics.

- Most working class youths don't engage in delinquent or criminal acts.

- Matza says youth aren't committed to the subculture and abandon it when they grow older.

Control Theory

- Hirschi suggests most people would commit crime if they had the chance, what stops them is the social bond they have with other people.

- There are 4 social bonds, if weakened or broken, will encourage people to turn to crime.

     - Commitment to conventional activities.

     - Attachment to those around them.

     - Beliefs, such as moral beliefs.

     - Involvement with teams, activities or community groups.

Evaluation of Control Theory

A. It recognises the importance of social integration in encouraging people to avoid crime.

D. It assumes that those who commit crime and deviance have broken away from the bonds tying them into mainstream values.

D. It doesn't explain why some have weaker bonds than others.

D. Doesn't explain why those with weaker bonds don't turn to crime.

D. Doesn't explain the variety of forms of crime and deviance.

D. It doesn't recognise the possibility for people with tight social bonds to be deviant.

Traditional Marxist Theories

- Capitalist society is criminogenic and deterministic, Poverty may mean crime is the only way for the W/C to survive, It is the only way to obtain consumer goods we are told we need and alienation can lead to frustration crimes like vandalism.

- Frankie Pearce and ideological functions - law making benefits the powerful upper class but pretend to benefit the W/C.

- Chambliss = state and law making. Rulling class can prevent laws being passed that will affect big business.

- Selective enforcement ignores the crimes of the powerful.

Neo-Marxist Theories

- Crime is voluntaristic.

- Sees W/C crime like vandalism and burglary as symbolic political acts of resistance against the rulling class oppression.

- Associated with new criminology (critical criminology) and brings together traditional marxist theories and labelling approaches.

- To understand crime, we need to look at 6 dimensions: The wider social origins of the deviant act, the immediate origins, the meaning of the act to the deviant, the immediate origins of the societal reaction, the wider origin of the societal reaction and the effects of societal reaction on the deviants further action.

Evaluations of Marxist and Neo-Marxist Theories

A. They highlight the importance of inequalities in power and wealth.

A. They recognise white collar and corporate crimes over working class crimes.

D. Over emphasise property crime and say little about rape/ murder/child abuse.

D. Neglect gender and ethnicity inequalities.

D. Feminists say they malestream and disregard female offending.

D. Difficult to interpret all laws as reflecting rulling class interests.

D. Taylor et al says they romanticise crime and ignore the main victims of crime.

D. They don't suggest practical policies to prevent crimes and protect victims.

Interactionist Theories: Labelling

- Crime statistics are socially constructed and unrepresentative.

- Becker argues no act in itself is deviant and only exists when it is defined as deviant by another.

- Moral entrepreneurs are those who have the power to create definitions of deviance and fix them to an individual or group.

- Cicourel = Negotiation of justice.

- Agencies of social control (Becker argues police respond to crime differently depending on stereotypes.)

- Lemert distinguishes between primary and secondary deviance.

- Master status can lead to the self fulfilling prophecy and a deviant career.

- Folk Devils - made worse by the media, labelling an act to be more deviant than it is.

Evaluation of Labelling theory

STRENGTHS

- It challenges the idea that deviants are different from normal people.

- Shows the importance of the reactions on others in defining and creating deviance.

- Reveals importance of stereotyping in understanding deviance.

- Shows how crime stats are a product of bias in law enforcement.

- Reveals the importance of those in power in defining acts and people as deviant.

- Shows how labelling can lead to a self fulfilling prophecy and deviant careers.

Evaluation of Labelling Theory

WEAKNESSES

- Tends to move the blame from the deviant to those who label.

- Assumes an act isn't deviant until its labelled.

- Doesn't explain causes of deviant behaviour which precedes the labelling process.

- Too deterministic.

- Assumes it's all down to societal reactions and ignores wider structural factors.

- Has little to say about the victims.

Feminist Theories of Crime and Deviance

- Criticised theories of being malestream as women offending is forgotten.

- Little attempt to explain female offending/deviance.

- Female victimisation was ignored.

They focus on the following issues:

     - Female offending and experiences of women in the criminal justice system.

     - Female victimisation from male physical and sexual violence.

     - The gender gap in offending.

     - Importance of gender identity in the understanding and labelling of crime.

Realist Theories of Crime

- Disregard abstract theoretical structural explanations (marxism and functionalism) or explanations that see crime as simply a social construction (Labelling theory)

- Focus on the real world impact of crime on victims and local communities and the development of practical policies to reduce crime.

Left Realism

Left realists use three concepts to explain why the W/C turn to crime:

     - Relative deprivation = deprived in comparison with others and expectations of themselves.

     - Marginalisation = social inequality )political, economical and social exclusion)

     - Subculture = emerge due to status frustration