Understanding Crime and Deviance: Key Basics

Understanding Crime and Deviance

Crime refers to actions that break the actual laws of a country, whilst deviance covers behaviours that go against society's norms and values - even if they're not illegal. The key insight here is that both concepts are socially constructed, meaning society creates these definitions rather than them being naturally occurring.

Crime and deviance change in four main ways. Historically, what was once acceptable can become criminal (like cocaine use) or vice versa (homosexuality). Contextually, the same behaviour can be fine in one situation but not another - think wearing a bikini on the beach versus in a town centre. Culturally, different societies have completely different standards, such as eating with your left hand being rude in some Arab nations. Finally, age affects what's acceptable - an 8-year-old clubbing would raise eyebrows!

Remember: What counts as criminal or deviant isn't fixed - it's constantly changing based on who has the power to make these decisions in society.

Non-sociological explanations include psychological theories like Bowlby's maternal deprivation and biological approaches like Lombroso's facial feature studies. However, these have major flaws - they ignore social factors and can turn criminals into victims of their biology or upbringing.

Functionalist Theories

Functionalists believe crime actually serves positive purposes for society. Durkheim argued that crime helps with boundary maintenance - public punishments show everyone what happens when you break the rules, bringing society together. Crime also acts as a warning sign when certain types increase, indicating something needs fixing in society.

Merton's Strain Theory focuses on the pressure people feel to achieve society's goals (like wealth) when they can't access legitimate means. This creates five responses: conformity (accepting both goals and means), innovation (accepting goals but using illegal means), ritualism (following means but giving up on goals), rebellion (rejecting everything and creating new goals), and retreatism (giving up entirely).

Control Theory flips the question - instead of asking why people commit crime, Hirschi asks why they don't. He suggests strong bonds with society (attachment, commitment, involvement, and belief) prevent criminal behaviour.

Key Point: Functionalists see some crime as necessary and even beneficial for society's health and development.

Sub-cultural theories explain how groups develop their own values that may conflict with mainstream society. These often emerge when legitimate opportunities are blocked, leading to alternative ways of achieving status and success.

Marxist and Neo-Marxist Perspectives

Marxists argue that capitalism is criminogenic - the system itself creates crime by exploiting workers and creating massive inequality. The frustration from this exploitation naturally leads to criminal behaviour, especially when people can't afford basic necessities.

The concept of selective law enforcement shows how the criminal justice system treats different social classes unfairly. Working-class people and ethnic minorities get criminalised whilst the wealthy often escape punishment. Meanwhile, selective law making means laws are written to benefit the rich and powerful in the first place.

Neo-Marxists developed a more complete theory that includes six elements: the wider origins of deviant acts, immediate origins, the act itself, immediate social reaction, wider social reaction, and the effects of labelling. They argue criminals make conscious choices rather than being passive victims of capitalism.

Think About: Why might a Marxist argue that most victims of crime are actually working-class people if crime is a response to capitalism?

Hall's study of moral panics around mugging in the 1970s showed how the media and police used racism to create a scapegoat during a time of social crisis. This diverted attention from the real problems of capitalism.

Labelling Theory

Labelling theory focuses on how society's reaction to behaviour is more important than the behaviour itself. According to Becker, there's nothing inherently deviant about any act - it only becomes deviant when society labels it as such.

Primary deviance occurs when someone commits a deviant act but nobody notices, so no label gets attached. Secondary deviance happens when the act is witnessed and the person gets labelled. This labelling process can lead to a self-fulfilling prophecy where people start acting according to their label.

The theory explains deviancy amplification - when attempts to control deviance actually create more of it. Cohen's study of Mods and Rockers showed how media coverage and police response escalated minor disturbances into major social problems.

Moral entrepreneurs are the powerful people who decide what's acceptable in society - governments, law makers, and the ruling class. Meanwhile, agencies of social control (police, courts, peers) enforce these decisions through formal and informal means.

Consider This: Once someone gets a criminal label, it can become their 'master status' - the main thing people notice about them, making legitimate opportunities harder to access.

The theory reveals how stereotypes and 'typifications' shape police behaviour, leading them to focus on certain groups and reinforce existing prejudices about who looks like a 'typical criminal'.

Realist Approaches

Left realists take crime seriously as a real problem affecting ordinary people, especially the working class. They identify three key causes: relative deprivation (feeling deprived compared to others), marginalisation (feeling excluded from society), and subcultures that develop alternative ways of achieving mainstream goals.

Left realists argue that rising living standards have increased people's expectations, making them feel more deprived when they can't achieve what they see others having. Their solutions focus on tackling underlying social problems like inequality and improving police-community relations.

Right realists are less interested in causes and more focused on practical solutions. They combine biological differences (some people are naturally more aggressive), poor socialisation (especially in lone-parent families), and rational choice (criminals weigh up costs and benefits).

Right realist solutions include target hardening (making crime more difficult) and zero tolerance policing (dealing with all crimes immediately, however minor). They argue that current punishments are too lenient, making crime an attractive option.

Key Difference: Left realists want to change society to reduce crime, whilst right realists want to change the criminal justice system to deter criminals.

Both approaches acknowledge that crime causes real harm to communities, unlike some theories that romanticise criminal behaviour or ignore its impact on victims.

Crime Statistics and Social Class

Official crime statistics come from police, court, and prison records, whilst the British Crime Survey asks 50,000 people annually about their experiences as victims. These show clear patterns - working-class people dominate prison populations and commit more street crimes (theft, assault, shoplifting).

Middle-class crime tends to be white-collar (using job positions for personal gain) or corporate (companies breaking laws to increase profits). These crimes often cause more financial damage than street crime but receive less attention and punishment.

Three main explanations account for class differences in crime patterns. Selective law enforcement means working-class people get arrested whilst middle-class people get warnings for similar offences. Selective law creation reflects how middle and upper-class law makers protect their own interests.

Labelling and stereotypes portray working-class people as naturally criminal whilst middle-class offenders are seen as making mistakes. This affects everything from police patrol patterns to sentencing decisions.

Reality Check: Corporate crimes like health and safety violations often kill more people than street violence, yet they rarely result in prison sentences.

The opportunity structure also matters - middle-class people have access to commit white-collar crimes through their jobs, whilst working-class people have more opportunities for street crime. Some theories suggest middle-class men commit white-collar crime to demonstrate masculinity or for the thrill of 'edgework'.

Media and Crime

The media significantly distorts our understanding of crime through selective reporting and news values that prioritise dramatic, violent, and unusual crimes. This creates a law of opposites where media coverage shows the exact opposite of what crime statistics reveal.

News values include immediacy, dramatisation, personalisation, and violence - all making murder and assault seem much more common than property crimes. The media also reinforces stereotypes about who commits crime (young, male, ethnic minorities) and who becomes victims (white, middle-class women).

Different theoretical perspectives explain media influence differently. Functionalists see crime reporting as reflecting public concerns and maintaining social solidarity. Marxists argue the media under-reports ruling-class crimes whilst over-reporting working-class crime to maintain control.

Feminist perspectives highlight how women are portrayed as helpless victims whilst violence against women, especially domestic violence, gets under-reported. The media often treats sex crimes against women as entertainment rather than serious social problems.

Media Myth: The concept of 'missing white woman syndrome' explains why certain victims get massive media attention whilst others are ignored entirely.

Postmodernists like Baudrillard suggest the media creates our reality - most people have no direct experience of crime, only the representations they see through mass media. This makes it difficult to distinguish between real crime trends and media constructions.

Media Effects and Moral Panics

The hypodermic syringe model suggests people passively absorb media messages and act on them without critical thinking. This could explain copycat crimes or people learning criminal techniques from crime shows. However, this model oversimplifies how audiences actually engage with media.

Media can cause crime through several mechanisms: imitation (copying what they see), learning (gaining criminal skills), arousal (adrenaline leading to risky behaviour), desensitisation (becoming less shocked by violence), relative deprivation (wanting lifestyles they can't afford), and glamorisation of criminal lifestyles.

Moral panics occur when public anxiety about a problem threatens society's moral standards. Cohen identified a five-stage process: initial media attention, agencies of control responding, exaggeration and symbolisation, deviance amplification, and problem redefinition.

The fear of crime cycle shows how media consumption increases fear, leading people to stay home more, consume more media, and become even more fearful. This creates unrealistic perceptions about crime rates and personal safety.

Modern Example: Current moral panics around knife crime, Islamic terrorism, and social media dangers follow the same patterns as historical panics about video nasties and satanic abuse.

Critics argue moral panics are now so frequent they're no longer noteworthy. In today's diverse society, it's harder to create consensus about what's unambiguously 'bad', and people are more aware of how moral panics work, sometimes even trying to create them deliberately.