1. Foundation
Crime
March 2014
What do you think, would not one
tiny crime be wiped out by thousands
of good deeds?
DOSTOEVSKY, Crime and Punishment
The punishment of criminals should
be of use; when a man is hanged he is
good for nothing
Voltaire
3. Critical thinking
• What is the relationship between deviance and
crime?
• The rate of offending is lower for women than
men; why?
• How is the definition of crime related to the
policies designed to deal with crime?
• Why and how are some crimes socially
constructed as being more harmful than others?
• Do criminals have choice?
• By what process does a person become
‘criminal’?
4. Today
• Context and key definitions
• Theoretical perspectives
– Functionalism:
• Emile Durkheim
• Robert K. Merton
– Subcultural theories
– Labelling theories
– New Criminology
– Left Realism
– Right Realism
– Control theories
– Techniques of neutralization
– Gender
5. Basic Concepts
• Deviance – non-conformity to a given set of norms
accepted by a significant number of people in a
society (Giddens 2009:939)
• Crime – non-conformist conduct that breaks a law
(Giddens 2009:940)
• Sanction – any reaction from others to individual /
group behaviour aimed at ensuring compliance to
norms
• Criminology tends to focus on crime whilst the
sociology of crime and deviance is broader, taking in
non-criminal forms of social deviance
6. Medieval to Enlightenment
Medieval
fall of man –original sin- evil an
integral part of humanity.
Heresy: crimes against God, Cathars
(12th/13th C), Arians (321Ad- Nicean
Creed).
Crime is work of the devil –tempting
men to commit sin in defiance of god.
Basis of Western moral laws
Ten commandments
Religion
Adultery
Killing
Theft
7. Theories of Crime and Criminology:
Classical
18th C philosophy; Utilitarianism (Key thinkers: Adam Smith, Jeremy
Bentham, Cesare Beccaria, James Mill)
• Rational, choice, responsibility: individual’s choice
• Punishment as deterrent power
• Attempt to secure administrative uniformity
• A scale of punishments proportionate to offence
• A social contract (Hobbes’ Leviathan [1651]) between individual
and society: break contract, failure to meet one’s responsibilities
• Critical thinking: why do you think classical criminology was
criticised?
• But it’s not game over: classical criminology is to resurface in
Rational Choice Theory... (Clarke & Cornish 1985, 2007, Clarke &
Felson1993) (see later)
8. Theories of Crime and Deviance: Positivism
• Sought to overcome limitations
of classical criminology
• factors outside individual
control:
– Environmental
– Biological
– alcohol abuse, drugs, heredity
milieus
• 19th C rationalist view of crime:
Scientific criminology- treat the
causes of disorder – crime is
result of observable factors
• Empirical research- leading to
Biological- Psychological
theories of crime and deviance
9. Muscles & Crime
• Mesomorphs (muscular types)
more likely to commit violent
crimes than thin (ectomorphs)
or round people
(endomorphs)
(Sheldon 1949, Glueck & Glueck
1956)
• Critical thinking
10. Late 19th century - Social Darwinism: Not Quite What Darwin
Thought!
• Evolution, not Creation
– Natural Selection
– Survival of the fittest
– Opens up possibility that crime is not a simple moral
choice or the temptation of the devil.
• Social Darwinism
– Hierarchy
– Social Class
– Sexuality (deviance, prostitution now seen a social evil)
• Eugenics (Galton1904)
– ‘The science of is the science which deals with all
influences that improve the inborn qualities of a race;
also with those that develop them to the utmost
advantage. The improvement of the inborn qualities, or
stock, of some one human population will alone be
discussed here’
– Hierarchy of peoples, races.
– Possibility of social decline through moral decline
11. Crime as Psychology
• Influence of Freud and
psychoanalysis:
– crime as an individual state- this is
some ways reverts to the older
medieval view of crime as moral failing,
prompted by evil forces.
• Psychopaths
– Lacking moral sense (amoral)
– Uninterested in the feelings of others.
• Psychopathic crimes
– Serial Murder – Jack the Ripper
• Crime is individual moral failing. –
important implications for how
crime and deviance is policed and
controlled.
12. Key issues from the context
• Morality
• Positivism
• Biology
• Innate qualities
• Choice
13. Topics for the Lecture
(organise your notes according to these
headings)
• Theoretical perspectives:
– Gender
– Emile Durkheim
– Robert K. Merton
– Subcultural theories
– Labelling theories
– New Criminology
– Left Realism
– Right Realism
– Control theories
– Techniques of neutralization
– Gender
15. Gender and Crime
• Women are less likely to commit crime
– 19% of all known offenders are women (Home Office 2003)
– 5.6% of total prison population in England and Wales (HM Prison
Service 2006)
– Theft from shops is more likely than violent crime (National Statistics
2006)
• Pollack (1950) certain crimes of women tend to go unreported.
Domestic roles prevent opportunities. Women are naturally deceitful;
faking interest in sex (!!) Male police officers will be more lenient.
• Hegemonic Masculinity (Connell 1987; 2001;2005)
– Violence and aggression is seen as an acceptable facet of masculine identities
• Heidensohn (1995) women are treated more harshly in cases where
they depart from feminine norms. Sexually promiscuous girls more
likely to be taken into custody than boys. Male aggression is seen as
natural.
• Carlen (1983) women perceived as bad mothers may receive harsher
penalties from courts
16. Emile Durkheim 1858-1917
• Crime and deviance are social facts – inevitable and necessary
• Anomie: lack of clear norms to guide behaviour leading to
disorientation and anxiety (due to move from mechanical
solidarity to organic solidarity)
• People are inherently selfish; need the family and other
structures to bind to shared moralities (collective conscience)
• Characteristic of modern societies with emphasis on individual
choice and freedom
• Two positive functions of deviance:
– Adaptive, innovation, new ideas (the altruistic criminal)
– Boundary maintenance, between us (the good people) and them (the
deviants) (the common criminal)
• Very influential, changing the focus from individual to the group
17. The Failing American Dream Robert K.
Merton (1957)
• Anomie: the strain between socially accepted norms and
social reality (Durkheim)
• What happens when not everyone can achieve the
American Dream?
• Five responses:
– Conformists: accept cultural goals and means
– Innovators: accept goals, devise new means (crime)
– Ritualists: reject goals, ritual acceptance of means
– Retreatists: reject both goals and means
– Rebels: aim to replace cultural goals and means
• Criticisms: is not this an individual focus?
• The official statistics he used are critiqued for being flawed.
18. Subcultural Accounts
Albert Cohen Delinquent Boys
(1955);The Sociology of the Deviant
Act: Anomie Theory and Beyond (1965)
• US studies of 1950s and 1960s
• Builds on Merton, but collective, not individual
• Deviant behaviour is a result of interaction
• Young men from poor neighbourhoods: no
opportunities to achieve so reject and replace
mainstream values with the values of gang loyalty,
aggression, toughness, delinquency
19. Subcultural Accounts
Cloward & Ohlin (1960) Delinquency &
Opportunity
• Possessions and displays of wealth common
to delinquent and non-delinquent
• May be particularly acute where young men
initially accept mainstream values but are
constantly frustrated in their attempts to
realise them
– Delinquency arises in subcultural communities
where chances of achieving success are
relatively small
– Expressing contempt for property rights
– e.g. members of ethnic minorities
20. Labelling Theory Howard Becker
(1963)
• Deviance not a property of the individual or group but the
relationship between ‘deviants’ and those who define them
thus
• In what circumstances might the following acts be seen as
deviant or as normal?
– Sitting at a bus shelter
– Dancing in the street
– Smoking marijuana
– Appearing naked in public
• Deviant acts produce deviant individuals only through the
process of labelling
• Deviancy amplification: acceptance of a label as ‘deviant’ can
create further deviant behaviour
21. Labelling Theory Howard Becker (1963)
• Becoming a Marijuana User(1960),
Marijuana Use and Social Control
(1963)
– Patterned sequence of steps could shape
experience, moral character, fate of
marijuana smoker
– Learn, master, interpret techniques,
neutralize forbidding images, disguising
signs
– Moral career of interlocking phases
• ‘deviance is not a quality of the act the
person commit, but rather a
consequence of the application by
others of rules and sanctions to an
“offender”. The deviant is one to whom
that label has been successfully applied;
deviant behaviour is that people so
label’ (Becker 1963:9)
22. Labelling Theory Edwin Lemert (1972)
The first theorist to mention the idea of secondary deviance
• Deviance is commonplace; most people get away with it
Primary deviancy
– Traffic violation; theft from the workplace
– Remains marginal to identity; normalised
• Sometimes normalization does not occur
Secondary Deviance
– Individuals come to see themselves as deviants, the label becomes central to their lives-
career criminals, gang members.
– Self identity makes it difficult to escape the deviant label.
• Deviancy Amplification (Wilkins 1964):
– Paradox
– social control agencies designed to deal with deviance (police, courts)
– by their nature create and maintain deviance by labelling individuals in
such a way as to make it impossible to escape.
23. Labelling Theory
William Chambliss (1973)
• Two groups of school delinquents in USA:
– One is upper middle class family – The Saints
– One is poor – The Roughnecks
• The Saints were constantly involved in petty crimes, drinking, vandalism,
truency:
– None were ever arrested
• The Roughnecks were similar:
– They were always getting arrested
• The upper class group had cars, could drive away and avoid being
labelled as deviant
• The Saints’ parents saw it as ‘harmless fun’ whereas the Roughnecks’
parents saw it as criminal behaviour
• Class bias in labelling behaviours
• The community shared the labels
• Their lives followed the same pattern:
– Secondary deviance (Supports Lemert)
24. The New Criminology:
Taylor, Walton and Young (1973)
Marxist inspired analysis:
• Laws and values are created by and in the interests of the
ruling class
• Working-class deviance is a form of resistance against the
power of the ruling class
• The working class is more closely policed than the middle
classes
• Fear of crime and urban unrest distract the public’s attention
from the real problems of capitalism
• White-collar and corporate crime often go undetected and
unpunished
25. The New Criminology:
Hall et al (1978) ‘Policing the Crisis’
• Muggers are portrayed as black
• Contributes to ideology that immigrants are criminal
• This is a ‘moral panic’
• Encouraged by the state and media representation
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gy57O9ZMENA
(5:12)
• Diverts attention away from:
– Rising unemployment
– Declining wages
– Deep structural problems
• Young black and south Asian communities are more
likely to be victims of crime, and seen as a social
problem than others
27. Left Realism
• Accepts a class-based analysis of society and power:
social exclusion is the problem
• Crime is real; the public are right to be worried (Lea &
Young 1984; Matthews & Young 1986)
• Victim surveys give a fuller picture of crime than official
statistics (Evans 1992)
• Poorest and most disadvantaged at greater risk of crime
than other social groups: rates of crime by blacks
demonstrates failure of integration policies
• Criminal subcultures develop where groups are
marginalized or socially excluded (related to Merton,
Cloward & Ohlin)
• Argues for community involvement in policing to build
trust: community policing, accountability, more time on
investigation, not paperwork.
28. Right Realism Right Realism and Control (1:27)
• Deviance seen as a property of an individual who acts
selfishly, immorally and with poor self-control:
– A culture of instant gratification
• Connected to Thatcher and 1970s policies
• Murray (1984) escalation of crime and deviancy is
attributed to:
– moral degeneracy, dependence on the welfare state and
liberal education, the collaps of the nuclear family, erosion
of traditional values
• Favours:
– Target hardening and surveillance systems (Vold et al 2002)
– Strong sentencing policies with use of prison as
punishment and deterrence
– Zero-tolerance and target-hardening policing strategies,
situational crime prevention
– Use of exclusion orders
29. Control theories
Gottfredson & Hirschi (1999)
• Not ‘why do we do it?’ but ‘why don’t we do it?’ (Hirschi 1969:34)
• Close neighbour of anomie (focus on regulation of potentially unbridled
appetites)
• People will commit crime because it is:
– Profitable
– Useful
– Maybe even enjoyable
– They will break the law if they can
• Four chief elements:
– Attachment – sensitivity to other’s opinions
– Commitment – investment of time/energy/reputation in conforming
– Involvement – engrossment in conventional activity
– Belief – in obeying rules
• Tautologies/ repetitive, but nonetheless important due to focus
• Gottfredson & Hirschi (1990) crime is low self-control A General Theory of
Crime
30. Italy drivers hit coin 'jackpot' after
lorry accident
A security lorry carrying some two million euros (£1.66m; $2.5m) in one and
two-euro coins overturned near Foggia.
Before the police arrived, some drivers stopped their cars and made off with
at least 10,000 euros.
31. Control theories
Rational Choice Theory Leamington Spa
• Resurgence of utilitarianism: situational control
• Disembodies offending behaviour:
– conducted by people making decisions about the issues of risk, effort
and reward (Clarke & Cornish 2000:7)
– in the settings in which they make take place (Clarke & Felson 1993)
• Three broad factors influence:
– Increasing effort Everyman would have to go to to commit
– Increasing risks of offending through screening people
– Reducing the rewards of crime (target removal)
• Routine Activities Theory: crime is embedded in the very
architecture of everyday life (Felson 1994):
– People act in response to situations they encounter
– Lifestyles bring you into contact with situations condusive to crime
– Motivated offender + suitable target + lack of control/supervision
32. Techniques of Neutralization
Sykes & Matza 1957
• How control is avoided
• Matza (1969) Delinquency and Drift
• Most of the time, delinquents are the same as us:
– Conventional in belief and conduct
– Occasions where grip of control loosens, adolescents feel fatalistic,
no longer morally responsible for actions, drift in and out of
delinquency
• Techniques of neutralization enable us to counter guilt by:
– Condemn condemners – ‘the police are all corrupt’
– Deny injury – ‘no real harm was done’
– Deny the victim – ‘they deserved it’
– Appeal to higher loyalties – ‘I was saving the whales’
– http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mpk2F6rKVj0 (How do Jonah and
his friends employ the techniques?)
33. Topics for the Lecture (and for
revision)
• Theoretical perspectives:
– Emile Durkheim
– Robert K. Merton
– Subcultural theories
– Labelling theories
– New Criminology
– Left Realism
– Right Realism
– Control theories
– Techniques of neutralization
– Gender
