Crime and Deviance

This section explores the topic crime and deviance in relation to A-Level Sociology. The page explains: Crime, Deviance, Social Order, and Social Control, The Social Distribution of Crime and Deviance by Ethnicity, Gender, and Social Class, Globalisation and Crime in Contemporary Society, Crime Control, Surveillance, Prevention, and Punishment and Victims and the Role of the Criminal Justice System.

Crime, Deviance, Social Order, and Social Control

Crime: Refers to behaviour that breaks the formal laws of a society and is punishable by legal sanctions, such as fines or imprisonment. Crimes are socially constructed, as what constitutes a crime can vary over time and between societies.

Deviance: Involves actions or behaviours that violate social norms, whether or not these norms are codified as laws. Deviance is relative, meaning what is considered deviant in one society or context may be seen as acceptable in another.

Social Order: Refers to the arrangement of practices and behaviours on which society’s members base their daily lives. Functionalists, such as Durkheim, argue that social order is maintained through shared norms and values, which create consensus and cohesion.

Social Control: Refers to the mechanisms through which society regulates individual behaviour to maintain order. There are two types:

Formal Social Control: Enforced by institutions such as the police, courts, and legal systems through laws and regulations.

Informal Social Control: Enforced through social norms, values, and customs, such as peer pressure, family expectations, or community judgement.

Sociological Theories of Crime and Deviance:

Functionalism: Durkheim saw crime and deviance as inevitable and necessary for society. Deviance can challenge existing norms and stimulate social change, but too much deviance can lead to anomie (normlessness).

Merton’s Strain Theory: Argues that crime occurs when there is a strain between socially accepted goals (e.g., wealth) and the legitimate means to achieve them. Individuals may turn to crime when they cannot achieve these goals through legal means.

Marxism: Marxists argue that crime is a result of the capitalist system. The ruling class uses laws to control the working class, and crime by the wealthy is often ignored (e.g., white-collar crime). Working-class individuals may commit crime due to poverty, exploitation, and alienation.

Labelling Theory: This theory focuses on how society’s reaction to certain behaviours creates deviance. Becker argues that acts are not inherently deviant; they become deviant when labelled as such. Moral entrepreneurs (e.g., media, politicians) play a key role in labelling and amplifying deviance.

Right Realism: Emphasises individual responsibility for crime and advocates for tough measures to control it, such as zero-tolerance policies. Wilson and Kelling’s "broken windows" theory suggests that visible signs of disorder encourage further crime.

Left Realism: Focuses on the social causes of crime, such as inequality, marginalisation, and relative deprivation. Lea and Young argue that crime is rooted in social conditions and that solutions should focus on social reform and community policing.

The Social Distribution of Crime and Deviance by Ethnicity, Gender, and Social Class

Ethnicity:

Black and Minority Ethnic (BME) Groups: Statistics show that ethnic minorities are overrepresented in crime figures, particularly among young Black males. Sociologists debate whether this reflects actual crime rates or institutional racism in the criminal justice system.

Institutional Racism: Macpherson Report (1999) highlighted institutional racism within the police after the Stephen Lawrence case. Ethnic minorities may also be more likely to experience stop and search.

Cultural Explanations: Some sociologists suggest that cultural factors, such as family structures, may influence crime rates among different ethnic groups, while others argue that relative deprivation and marginalisation play a larger role.

Gender:

Men and Crime: Men are more likely to commit and be victims of crime, especially violent crime. Messerschmidt argues that crime can be a way for men to express their hegemonic masculinity.

Women and Crime: Women commit fewer crimes than men, a pattern explained by factors such as gender socialisation (women are socialised to be passive and conformist) and social control.

Chivalry Thesis: Suggests that women are treated more leniently by the criminal justice system. However, Heidensohn argues that women are actually treated more harshly when they deviate from traditional gender norms.

Social Class:

Working-Class Crime: Working-class individuals are more likely to be convicted of property crime, often due to relative deprivation, blocked opportunities, or alienation.

White-Collar and Corporate Crime: Sutherland coined the term white-collar crime to refer to crimes committed by individuals in high-status occupations, such as fraud or embezzlement. These crimes often go unpunished or attract less media attention compared to working-class crimes.

Recent Patterns and Trends in Crime:

Crime Rates: Overall crime rates have declined in the UK since the mid-1990s, although certain types of crime, such as cybercrime, have increased.

Youth Crime: Young people are more likely to commit crime, especially property crime, but there has been a decline in youth offending in recent years.

Globalisation and Crime in Contemporary Society

Globalisation: Refers to the increasing interconnectedness of the world through trade, migration, communication, and technology. Globalisation has led to the rise of global crime, including:

Transnational Organised Crime: Involves criminal activities that cross borders, such as drug trafficking, human trafficking, and smuggling.

Cybercrime: Includes crimes such as hacking, fraud, and identity theft, which have become more prevalent with the growth of the internet.

The Media and Crime: The media plays a significant role in shaping public perceptions of crime. Cohen argued that the media creates moral panics by exaggerating the threat of certain groups (e.g., mods and rockers), leading to deviancy amplification. The media also disproportionately reports violent and sensational crimes, skewing public understanding of crime rates.

Green Crime: Refers to crimes that harm the environment, such as illegal dumping of waste, deforestation, and wildlife trafficking. Green crimes often have global consequences and are committed by both corporations and individuals. Beck’s Risk Society theory argues that we live in a global risk society, where environmental risks and crimes affect all societies.

Human Rights and State Crimes:

State Crimes: Crimes committed by governments or state agencies, such as genocide, torture, or war crimes. Green and Ward define state crime as illegal or deviant activities perpetrated by or with the complicity of state agencies.

Human Rights: Sociologists like Cohen argue that states often conceal or justify their involvement in human rights abuses by denying responsibility or through "neutralisation techniques".

Crime Control, Surveillance, Prevention, and Punishment

Crime Control: Sociologists differentiate between various methods of controlling crime:

Situational Crime Prevention: Involves strategies that aim to reduce opportunities for crime by designing environments to make crimes harder to commit (e.g., CCTV, better lighting).

Environmental Crime Prevention: Associated with the "broken windows" theory, this approach focuses on maintaining social order through the removal of visible signs of disorder (e.g., vandalism, graffiti and fly tipping).

Surveillance:

Foucault’s Panopticon: Foucault argued that modern societies use surveillance to control behaviour. The rise of CCTV and other technologies allows constant monitoring of individuals, creating a sense of being watched, which discourages deviant behaviour.

Postmodern Perspectives: Lyon discusses the concept of a "surveillance society", where increasing technology has made surveillance a central feature of social control.

Prevention: Crime prevention strategies can be divided into two types:

Primary Prevention: Involves tackling the social causes of crime, such as poverty, unemployment, and education. Left realists advocate for social policies that reduce inequality and improve opportunities for marginalised groups.

Secondary Prevention: Focuses on identifying individuals at risk of committing crime and intervening early, such as through youth mentoring programmes or social work.

Punishment:

Functionalist Views: Durkheim argued that punishment reinforces social solidarity by expressing society’s disapproval of deviant behaviour.

Marxist Views: Marxists see punishment as a way for the ruling class to maintain control over the working class. Imprisonment, for example, is a tool to manage and oppress those who threaten capitalist interests.

Victims and the Role of the Criminal Justice System

Victimology: The study of victims and their experiences of crime. Positivist Victimology looks at the factors that make certain individuals more likely to be victims, such as lifestyle or behaviour. Critical Victimology examines how structural factors (e.g., class, gender) make certain groups more vulnerable and how the state may neglect or even oppress victims of crimes, such as domestic violence.

The Criminal Justice System: The role of the criminal justice system is to maintain law and order, enforce laws, and administer justice through institutions such as the police, courts, and prisons.

Right Realism advocates for tougher policing and harsher punishments, whereas Left Realism calls for more community-based solutions and addressing social inequalities that lead to crime.

Crime and deviance are complex phenomena shaped by social structures, inequalities, and global changes. Sociological perspectives on crime vary, from functionalist views that see crime as a necessary part of social order, to critical theories that focus on power, inequality, and the role of the state. Understanding crime also requires an awareness of the distribution of crime by social class, ethnicity, and gender, as well as how globalisation, the media, and green crime have transformed the nature of crime in contemporary society. Crime control, surveillance, and punishment remain key issues in shaping social order and justice.