Key Terms for Crime

When studying crime, you need to understand several essential terms. Crime refers to illegal acts that are punishable by law, while deviance describes behaviors that go against society's norms but might not be illegal (like having facial tattoos).

The dark figure of crime represents all crimes that aren't witnessed, reported, or recorded by police - this is why official statistics can be misleading! The criminal justice system includes police, courts, and prisons that manage offenders and try to reduce reoffending.

Agencies of social control are groups that regulate our behavior, while anomie describes a sense of normlessness where strict rules seem absent (which can cause crime). The chivalry thesis suggests the criminal justice system treats women more leniently.

💡 Remember that corporate crime (committed by businesses for profit) is often less visible in crime statistics despite potentially causing widespread harm!

More Key Crime Terms

Subcultures are groups whose norms and values differ from mainstream society. Young people in these groups might experience status frustration when they can't achieve success through conventional means, leading to deviant behavior to gain respect from peers.

Society uses sanctions (consequences) to control behavior. People may turn to crime due to relative deprivation - feeling they lack things that similar individuals have, making them feel unfairly disadvantaged.

Formal social control happens through official government agencies like police, while informal social control occurs through social pressure from family and friends. The media can cause deviancy amplification by exaggerating crimes and creating moral panics.

⚠️ Institutional racism exists when organizations like the police show discrimination either openly or subtly, affecting which groups are more likely to appear in crime statistics!

Functionalist Views on Crime

Functionalists believe crime is inevitable and universal, occurring when people can't achieve society's goals. Rather than seeing crime as simply harmful, they recognize it can serve useful purposes for society!

Durkheim's view suggests crime has positive functions: it helps with boundary maintenance (showing what's unacceptable), changing outdated rules, acting as a warning device, and even providing jobs in the criminal justice system.

Merton's strain theory explains that crime happens when people can't legally achieve society's goals due to poor education or limited opportunities. He identified five responses to this strain: conformity, innovation (crime to achieve goals), retreatism (dropping out), rebellion, and ritualism.

🔍 The functionalist perspective has been criticized for explaining the functions of crime without fully addressing why specific individuals commit crimes in the first place.

Marxists & Feminist Views

Marxists see crime as negative, maintaining capitalism and the class divide. They argue the ruling class creates laws that benefit themselves while targeting the working class. This explains why working-class crimes appear more in statistics while middle-class white-collar crimes often go undetected.

Feminists view crime as helping maintain patriarchy in society. They highlight how crimes like domestic violence and sexual assaults aren't taken seriously, and female victims often receive inadequate support from the criminal justice system.

Female criminals face additional stigma as "double deviants" - they've broken both the law and gender expectations of how women should behave. This perspective helps explain why women are treated differently within the criminal justice system.

💬 Both theories focus on power imbalances in society - Marxists on class inequality and feminists on gender inequality - to explain patterns in criminal behavior and how crime is policed.

Interactionist & Subcultural View

Interactionists believe an act only becomes criminal or deviant when society labels it as such. Labelling can lead to a self-fulfilling prophecy where the criminal label becomes someone's master status - their most important characteristic in others' eyes.

Howard Becker argued that labelled individuals might spiral into a "deviant career" and join criminal subcultures when they're rejected by mainstream society. Once labelled, it becomes harder to escape that identity.

Criminal subcultures typically involve young males whose behavior goes against society's norms. Albert Cohen explained that working-class boys experience status frustration when they can't achieve success through conventional means. They join delinquent subcultures to gain status and fight back against a society that has rejected them.

🚨 Being labelled as "criminal" or "deviant" can change how people see themselves! The label might become more influential than any original behavior that caused it.

Functionalist Key Studies

Merton's strain theory proposes that while all members of society share the same values and goals (like success and wealth), not everyone has equal opportunities to achieve them. This creates strain, leading to different responses - only some of which involve crime.

The five reactions to strain are: conformity (following rules), innovation (using illegal means to achieve goals), ritualism (giving up on goals but following rules), retreatism (rejecting both goals and means), and rebellion (creating new goals and means).

Cohen's study on delinquent boys found that working-class males hold mainstream ambitions but face educational failure and poor job prospects. Their resulting status frustration leads them to join delinquent subcultures where activities like vandalism, graffiti, and joyriding earn them status among peers.

🧠 Think about how this explains why crime tends to be higher in deprived areas - it's not about different values but about different opportunities to achieve shared goals!

Feminist & Interactionist Key Studies

Becker's interactionist study showed that an act only becomes criminal when labelled as such. People might accept this label through a self-fulfilling prophecy, with the criminal identity becoming their master status. They can spiral into a deviant career by joining criminal subcultures.

Heidensohn's feminist research used control theory to explain why women commit less crime than men. She found women are controlled at home (by husbands), at work (by male bosses), and in public (by fear of male violence). Girls develop a "bedroom culture" with fewer opportunities for crime due to these controls.

Carlen interviewed 39 working-class women criminals and discovered they turned to crime because they had less to lose. They couldn't conform to the "gender deal" (stable relationships) or the "class deal" $well-paid jobs$, making crime a more attractive option.

🔑 Understanding these studies helps you see how different sociologists explain gender patterns in crime statistics - it's not that women are naturally less criminal, but that social factors influence their opportunities and choices!

Crime Statistics and Social Patterns

Crime statistics reveal fascinating patterns across social groups. Working-class people are more likely to appear in crime statistics due to deprivation, poorer education, and status frustration. However, these statistics might be skewed as police target blue-collar crimes more than white-collar or corporate crimes.

Gender patterns show that men make up most of the prison population, possibly due to male socialization into risk-taking behavior and greater opportunity for crime. Yet the chivalry thesis suggests women might be treated more leniently by the criminal justice system.

Ethnicity data reveals overrepresentation of Black people in prisons compared to the general population. This might reflect higher rates of deprivation but also institutional racism - with Black individuals nine times more likely to be stopped and searched.

🔎 The dark figure of crime reminds us that official statistics only capture reported and recorded crimes - many offenses remain invisible in the data, especially white-collar and corporate crimes!

Crime statistics come from three main sources, each with limitations: police records (miss unreported crimes), victim surveys (people may not realize they're victims), and self-report surveys (people might not be honest about their criminal activity).