Crime And Deviance

Front 1

PLUMMER

Back 1

• The same act can be seen as deviant or non-deviant depending on the situation.
  
• Situational deviance or societal deviance.

Front 2

LOMBROSO

Back 2

• Psychological explanation of crime and deviance.
• Criminals are genetically different.
• There are outward signs of the criminal personality such as a large jaw or extra fingers or toes.

Front 3

MOIR AND JESSEL

Back 3

• Psychological explanation of crime and deviance.
  

• Hormonal and chemical imbalances make individuals more likely to be criminal.

• These imbalances affect men more than women - explaining why statistics show most crime is committed by men.

Front 4

BOWLBY

Back 4

• Psychological explanation of crime and deviance.
  
• Individuals who are deprived of maternal love in the first years of life are likely to develop personality traits which lead them to commit crime.

Front 5

EYSENCK

Back 5

• Psychological explanation of crime and deviance.
  
• Individuals who commit crime have inherited psychological characteristics which predispose them to crime.
  
• Concluded from psychological research.

Front 6

DURKHEIM

(function of crime)

Back 6

• Functionalist.
• Deviancy allows for social change to occur.
• All societies need change to remain healthy and stable.
• Crime moves from functional to dysfunctional when the level of crime is either too high or too low.

Front 7

COHEN

Back 7

• Deviance maintains social order; forms of deviance such as prostitution provide a safety valve for releasing tension in society and is a warning device for society to identify emerging social problems.
• Status frustration leads to subcultures which have alternative values for achieving status.

Front 8

MERTON

Back 8

• Crime is a response to failing to achieve society's cultural goals.
• Individuals who fail at the standard route to success find alternative and deviant means of reaching success and wealth.
• They may also retreat from society or rebel in protest and revolution.

Front 9

CLOWARD AND OHLIN

Back 9

• Combined ideas of Merton and Cohen - believed there was a legitimate opportunity structure (passing exams and getting a job) and an illegitimate opportunity structure.

Front 10

MILLER

Back 10

• Crime and delinquency comes from working class cultural values.
• Values passed from generation to generation encourage working class men to break the law.

Front 11

BORDUA

Back 11

• Criticism of Miller - the idea working class live their lives isolated from the rest of society is flawed to begin with.

Front 12

MURRAY

Back 12

• New Right.
• Supported Miller's ideas - there's an underclass in both British and American society with a distinct culture and value system which encourages deviant behaviour.
• Claims the higher the risk of going to prison, the less likely people are to commit crime.

Front 13

BONGER

Back 13

• Marxist.
• Crime is an inevitable response to the extremes of wealth and poverty in capitalist society.
• The individual is "forced" into crime by the structure of society.

Front 14

HEIDENSOHN

Back 14

• Feminist.
• "Malestream" society is gender blind.
• Most studies of crime have been researched by mean who have focused on male crime and ignored the role of women, either as victims or as criminals.
• Women have less opportunity to commit some types of crime e.g. financial fraud.

Front 15

WESTWOOD

Back 15

• Feminist.
• Female identities are changing and women are adopting more typically male behaviour patterns.

Front 16

CAROL SMART

Back 16

• Feminist.
• Female crime has to be looked at as part of women's broader experience in society.

Front 17

BECKER

Back 17

• Interpretivist.
• Deviance is behaviour which has been labelled deviant by the reaction of others.
• The same behaviour gets different reactions depending on the social situation.
• A self concept of being deviant can increase deviant behaviour.

Front 18

GOFFMAN

Back 18

• Interpretivist.
• Deviance and mental illness.
• The negative label of being mad is imposed on the patient by society and psychiatry, and the patient must eventually conform to it.

Front 19

LEMERT

Back 19

• Primary deviance = the initial deviant act.
• Secondary deviance = deviant acts committed after the individual has accepted the label of deviant.

Front 20

AKERS

Back 20

• Criticism of Interpretivism - presents individuals as powerless to make decisions or take control of their own identity + deviance is not something that happens to people but a choice that individuals make.

Front 21

TAYLOR, WALTON AND YOUNG

Back 21

• NEW CRIMINOLOGY - criminals choose to break the law.
• Criticism of Interpretivism - many forms of behaviour are widely viewed as deviant so deviants know they are breaking the law/social rules before any societal reaction, but still do it.

Front 22

GOULDNER

Back 22

• Believes interpretivists are fascinated with deviance, and aren't interested in changing society.

Front 23

HIRSCHI

Back 23

• Four social bonds that hold society together; attachment to society, commitment to society, involvement in society and the belief that society's rules must be obeyed.
• The more strongly they feel these bonds, the less likely they are to commit crime.

Front 24

WILSON AND KELLING

Back 24

• The "broken windows" thesis - when crimes (even minor crimes like breaking windows) go uncorrected and unpunished, people start to feel there is no social control and lose their sense of belonging.

• This leads to increasing crime rates and a downwards spiral of decay.

Front 25

ETZONI

Back 25

• In the past poor communities policed themselves and in some communities, this system has broken down and a criminal underclass has taken over.
• The way this can be corrected is to create a greater sense of social integration and social responsibility e.g. neighbourhood watch schemes.

Front 26

CHAMBLISS AND MANKOFF

Back 26

• Marxist.
• The vast majority of law in the UK is property law and most of this law serves to keep working class away from the property and land of the rich.
  
• The ruling class use the law to protect private property because capitalist exploitation is built upon it.

Front 27

LAUREEN SNIDER

Back 27

• Marxist.
• Legislation regulating large companies is restricted in capitalist societies because it could threaten ruling class interests.
• Working class crimes such as burglary don't cause as much harm as corporate crimes such as breaking health and safety law.

Front 28

PEARCE

Back 28

• Marxist.
• Even the laws which supposedly protect the working class (e.g. health and safety laws, consumer laws) are really in ruling class interests as the system needs healthy, safe and loyal workers.

Front 29

CHAMBLISS

Back 29

• Marxist.
• Studied crime in the American city of Seattle and found those in power were able to use their power to conduct criminal activity and to avoid prison.
• Found an organised crime syndicate that included businessmen and politicians who used money and influence to bribe officials.

Front 30

GORDON

Back 30

• Marxist.
• Selective enforcement of the law and selective reporting in the media gives the impression that criminals are largely working class.
• This not only diverts attention from ruling class crime but also divides the working class.

Front 31

LEA AND YOUNG

Back 31

• Left realists.
• Criticised other left-wing writers for overlooking the reality of crime by focusing on the problems within capitalism.
• A sense of relative deprivation is a major factor leading to crime and they turn to crime to "solve" the problem.

Front 32

KINSEY, LEA AND YOUNG

Back 32

• Left realist.
• British policing needs to be centred on creating and maintaining good communication between the police and local communities.
• The public should have a key role in deciding police policy.

Front 33

HUGHES

Back 33

• Criticism of left realism - they haven't explained why some people who experience relative deprivation see crime as a solution and other's don't. There would be a lot more crime if relative deprivation was the main cause.

Front 34

WILSON

Back 34

• Right realist.
• Individuals commit crime because the gains outweigh the chances of being caught and punished.
• It's necessary to issue harsh punishments for the smallest crimes so the benefits won't outweigh the punishment anymore.

Front 35

ABBOTT AND WALLACE

Back 35

• Young women are more closely watched by their families and given less freedom outside the home, reducing their opportunities for crime.

Front 36

IAN MARSH

Back 36

• Men commit more crime because they have the opportunities to do so.
• Where females have similar opportunities to males they seem as likely to break laws.

Front 37

THE MACPHERSON REPORT

Back 37

• Concluded that the police were institutionally racist.
• The court system has also been accused of automatically favouring white middle class defendants.
• Relatively few black people in the police or the legal system.

Front 38

HALL ET AL

Back 38

• Young black people have been labelled as criminal by modern British society and have become a scapegoat for social problems in society.
• High levels of unemployment among young black men leads some young black men to opt out of mainstream society and turn to crime.

Front 39

DURKHEIM

(suicide)

Back 39

• Wanted sociology to be seen as a science.
• Four forms of suicide; egoistic, anomic, altruistic, and fatalistic.
• Analysis of statistics found some groups were more likely to commit suicide.

Front 40

DOUGLAS

Back 40

• Four social meanings for suicides in modern industrial societies; transformation of the soul, transformation of the self, achieving sympathy and achieving revenge.
• Need to categorise suicides according to social meanings because suicides are different in different cultures.

Front 41

BAECHLER

Back 41

• Used case studies for his research into the meanings behind suicides.
• Suicide was an action chosen by individuals to solve a problem when all other solutions had failed.
• One response to the social circumstances an individual is in.

Front 42

ATKINSON

Back 42

• Studied coroners' courts and suggested that coroners use their own interpretations and definitions in order to define a death as suicide.
• Suicide statistics are not facts but reflections of coroners' interpretations.

Front 43

TAYLOR

Back 43

• Identified a number of factors that influence inquests.
• In cases without suicide notes, Taylor concluded that a suicide verdict was far more likely if the victim had a history of mental illness or suffered a recent set back/humiliation.
• Suicide statistics are unreliable.