1. SCLY 4 – June 19th 2012
1. Functions of crime & Deviance
 Functionalism - manifest versus latent functions, safety valve, boundary
maintenance, reassurance, causes social change – all indicate strain = Merton and
possible policy
 Neo Marxism - scapegoating benefits capitalism
 Poststructuralism - surveillance
 Postmodernism - transgression
2. Official crime Statistics
 Functionalists + NRR = valid and comparable and suitable for
hypothesis testing
 Feminists – ignore dark figure of domestic violence being unreported
(FRAIDS)
 Marxists – ignore other dark figures eg crimes of powerful
 Artefacts – materialism increases crime, new laws increase crime, moral
panics increase crime
 Interpretivists – PO studies of stereotyping and differential police / court
treatment; institutional racism and sexism
 Neo-Marxism - OCS as an ISA creating false consciousness
 NLR – young, male A-C’s living in urban areas really do commit more
crime
3.Why do individuals commit crime?
 Merton - strain causes IRRR
 Feminist & Ma rxist criticisms of Merton
 New Right - rational choice theory
 Postmodernism - transgression
4. Why do working class youth (Age) commit crime – subcultural theory
 A Cohen - status frustration resulting in inversion of m/c values and different types of non-utilitarian deviance
 Cloward & Ohlin - access to illegitimate opportunity structure resulting in different types of crime & deviance
 Sutherland - differential association = not jus t w/c youth but m/c
white collar workers
 Miller – 6 focal concerns of socialised w/c hegemonic
masculinity
 Matza – only a minority become delinquents, techniques of
neutralisation prove drift not frustration and subterranean not
subcultural values
 Murray - lone parent underclass culture of welfare dependency
 Young - relative deprivation & marginalisation
 Hall - youth as convenient scapegoats
 Young – role of police targeting of youth
 S Cohen - social construction of youth folk devils & moral panics
 Katz – thrill seeking, Lyng – edgework
5. Why is there a relationship between social class and crime?

2. Marxism - crimogenic capitalism (Gordon) & white collar and corporate crime (Croall)
Marxism – ideology of consumerism / materialism forces w/c to commit crime
Marxism – law is part of the ISA thus OCS are invalid...(Althusser)
Functionalism - Sutherland - differential association & white collar crime
Chambliss - biased law creation
Cicoural - biased law enforcement
Neo Marxism - Hall -w/c as scapegoats for hegemonic crisis in capitalism
New Left Realism – relative deprivation (bulimic society) and political/economic / social / educational
(unmeritocratic) marginalisation (exclusive society) causes subcultural responses – eg Summer 2011 riots
(Young)
 New Right - Murray - lone parent underclass culture of welfare dependency
6. Is there a relationship between region and crime – Ecological theories?
Positivists:
 Tonnies / Durkheim – rural social control (gemeinshaft) versus lack of urban social control (geselleschaft)
 Shaw & McKay - social disorganisation in zone 2
 Bottoms - social housing policy of dumping causing tipping
 Cognitive awareness zones (eg Oxford Crime Survey, & Cohen -prostitution)
 Hobbs et al – nightime economy of edgework (link to Oxford Crime Survey)
 Wilson & Kelling (broken windows)
 Marxists (police targeting)
Realist solutions & criticisms:
 Victim precipitation (BCS) & Situational crime prevention (eg street lighting – Stoke on Trent study)
 Different types of displacement
 Surveillance & the panopticon (Foucault)
 Individualisation & victim precipitation (New Right)
 Victim precipitation (New Left Realism and Feminisms)
 Communitarianism (Etzioni, Young, Giddens)
7. The relationship between ethnicity and crime
 Dysfunctional socialisation (family, media) – New Right
 Political, social, educational, economic marginalisation
(racial discrimination) in an exclusive society - NLR
 Relative deprivation caused by racial discrimination and
marginalisation – NLR
 Subcultural responses because of status frustration and
linked to hegemonic masculinity- eg gang membership
 Different masculinities = different crimes (Messerschmidt)
 Counter hegemonic fightback – Neo Marxists
 Hall - Socially constructed scapegoats – Neo-Marxists
 Invalid OCS because of institutional racism in police, CPS,
Courts and Probation –NLR v NRR (OCS are real)
8. The relationships between genders and crime
 Statistical trends proving crime is gendered (Heidensohn)
 Chivalry thesis (Pollack) + criticisms

3.  Malestream bias
Women
 Differential socialisation
 Differential opportunity / social control
 Rational choice – class gender deal (Carlen)
 Feminisation of poverty
 Feminist liberation theory (Adler)
 Gender transgression theory (postmodernism )
Men
 Socialised hegemonic masculinity especially in youth facing status frustration (Messerschmidt & Winlow)
 Thrill seeking (Katz) or edgework (Lyng)
9. The relationship between the mass media and crime/deviance
 Psychological - social learning theory & desenstization (bobo doll, rap,
violent movies/X-box) – Morrison, Sparks, Cumberbatch
 Marxism - Cultivation theory (class and racist hegemony)
 NLR – bulimic society of conspicuous consumption (Reiner)
 Radical feminism (rape, misogyny)
 Labelling (folk devils and moral panics – Cohen)
 Interactionism - Deviancy amplification spiral and social control
 Interactionism – biased media CAGER, police, dramatic fallacies = social
constructionism
 Criticisms (determinism, length of moral panics, bias in media methods)
10. Victimisation and crime
 Victimology as a paradigm shift by Realists
 Proneness versus precipitation (fault) Realisms
 BCS aims, methods, findings, strengths and limitations
 Realist alternatives to BCS (Local victim Surveys and
Feminist victim surveys – Dobash’s, Walklate)
11. Can social policy reduce crime?
 NRR – situational crime prevention and broken windows
(environmental crime prevention)
 Criticisms (displacement, ignores crimes of powerful,
malestream, ignores structural causes...)
 NLR – communitarianism &
institutional racism
 Functionalism – effectiveness
of public punishment / retributive justice
 Interactionists – criticisms of prisons
 Marxists – depends on definition of crime, mass incarceration
 Foucault – panopticon of surveillance and socially controlling carceral
archipelago (Cohen)

4. 12. The relationship between globalisation and crime (Zemiology)
 Examples, paradigm shift to zemiology or transgressive criminology
 New opportunities (eg transport, cyber crime) – Hobbs & Dunningham
 Global networks – living local acting global
 Problems of policing
 Crimogenic capitalism and transnational corporations (Taylor)
 Risk (Beck)
13. Green crime
 Definitions - primary versus secondary green crime
 Beck – manufactured risk
 Marxists – crimogenic capitalism
 Interactionists – invalid OCS – can’t police green crime
 NLR / postmodernists – paradigm shift from anthrocentrism to
eco-centrism
14. State crime
 Types + examples
 Marxism – Chomsky- paradigm shift
 Marxism = media ignore it (ISA)
 Interactionists – invalid OCS + techniques of neutralisation
15. How is deviance socially constructed?
 Interactionists – criticisms of OCS & BCS and
SRS
 Lemert - primary versus secondary deviance
 Becker - role of moral entrepreneurs
 Young - police response amplifying deviance
 S Cohen - media construction of folk devils &
moral panics
 Fawbert - hoodies
 Criticisms of moral panic thesis
 Criticisms of interactionist topics, values and methods
16. Suicide as a form of deviance
 Positivism - Durkheim – scientific method using OSS – 4
types of suicide caused int/reg
 9*-+Internal criticisms of Positivism - Halbwachs and
Gibbs & Martin
 Interpretivism – critical of OSS, using qual methods – 4
types of suicide (Douglas)
 Phenomenology –socially constructed OSS & deviant lab el (Firth, Stengel)
 Realists – qual data can prove suicide causes (Baechler – 4 types and Taylor – 4 types linked to degree of
certainty in relation to symphonic and ectopic experiences

5. 17. Sociology and science
 Characteristics of science CUDOs (Merton)
 Links with positivism eg Durkheim on suicide / New
Right on RCT & SCP
 Popper’s criticism - falsification
 Kuhn criticism - paradigm bias in science, sociology is
pre-paradigm
 Keat & Urry criticisms - sociology has open not closed
science systems
 Interpretivist criticisms
 Science isn’t a science criticism
 Marxist criticisms
 Postmodernist criticisms – Sociological modernist
paradigm as a failed metanarrative
18. Sociology and values
 Values don’t influence: Positivism – sociology as a science
 Values do influence: interactionism, feminism, Marxism, NLR & NRR, postmodernism
19. Social policy
 Does influence: measurement, advice, analysis skills eg Positivism & NRR & NLR
 Should influence: interactionism, feminism
 Doesn’t influence: Marxism
 Shouldn’t influence: postmodernism
20. The relationships between epistemology and methodology
 Positivist / structuralism = quantitative (empiricism)
 Interactionism = qualitative
 Feminist Standpoint Epistemology = IDI’s
 Phenomenology / relativism = IDI’s
 Realism = qualitative, analysed scientifically
 Postmodernism = personal documents = truths
21. Consensus theories
 Functionalism - GAIL needs met by subsystem institutions + criticisms
 Liberal Feminism
 Criticisms (reification, tautology, ignores conflict, malestream, trusts official statistics)
22. Conflict theories
 Orthodox
 Structural– Althusser
 Humanistic - Gramsci
 Radical, Marxist, Dual Systems, Black Feminisms

6. 23. Feminists theories
Consensus theory
 Liberal
Conflict theories
 Radical
 Marxist
 Dual Systems (Feminist-Marxist)
 Black
Postmodernist feminism
Structuration theory – Poststructuralist
feminism
24. Interactionist / interpretivist / Social Actiontheories
Social order and social change based on
 meanings & social context
 I versus me (similar to functionalism) – Mead
 Action not reactive determinism
 Society based on categorisation / stereotyping
 Criticisms (individual, micro, trivial, no real choice, ignores
power, relativism, can’t explain change
25.
Structuration theory (Giddens)
 Duality of structure
 Action reproduces structure
 Action causes change
 Giddens + New Labour policy
 Criticisms
26. Modernist theories
 Enlightenment
 Scientific rationality (CUDOs) & Positivism
 Social engineering
 Values shouldn’t / should influence research
 Positive relationship with social policy
27. Postmodernist theory (Foucault, Baudrillard, Lytard)
Paradigm shift:
 Globalisation causes need for a new theory
 Science as a failed metanarrative
 Positivism / malestream sociology as a language game
 Need for subjective truth claims (validities)
 Hypereality and construction of self (action over structure)
 Criticisms

7. 28. Late Modernity (Beck, Habermas)
Paradigm shift:
 Risk society
 Individualism
 Post Fordism
 Commodification of identify
 Fragmentation of
proletariat?
 Criticisms
29. Modernism versus Post & Late modernism
30. Methodology
 Practical (Time, Resources, Access, Money, Personal characteristics of researcher)
 Ethics (deception, informed consent, choice of topic – underdog, harm/illegal, omelette-eggs)
 Reliability (piloting, change in operationalizing concepts/definitions, systematic = training)
 Validity (biased operationalizing concepts, loaded/leading questions, going native, Hawthorne effect, double
fitting data to theory?)
 Enough (methodological pluralism/cosmopolitanism between methods and within a method, more than
researcher) = aim is triangulation (Hammersley)
 Representativeness (availability of sampling frame dictates random – simple, systematic, stratified,
cluster/quota = positivism ; non-random – opportunity, volunteer, snowball case studies = interactionism, FSE)
 Theoretical bias (Positivism, Interactionism, FSE, Structuration, Postmodernism)
31. Methods
 Experiments: Laboratory: Bobo doll – unreliable, small sample, Hawthorne Effect, harm, meanings
 Experiments: Field: Rosenthal & Jacobson (spurter study), Rosenhan (Schizophrenia), Elliott (blue eyes /
brown eyes) – unreliable, small sample, deception, meanings, omelette-egg praxis
 Surveys – BCS, victimisation surveys, poverty (Townsend), National child Development Study = sample
attrition
 Questionnaires – Farrington & West on SRS, Jackson & Sunshine – attitudes to police = pilot study,
operationalizing concepts, lg sample, less time consuming, face to face lacks reliability, postal low response
rate, cannot include all criminal acts, unrep- distributed to young people & lower response rate from those who
had a criminal record (Junger-Tas)
 Interviews – Venkatesh (gang leader for a day), Patrick (Glasgow gang), Laurie Taylor (John McVicar),
Dobash’s (domestic violence), Barker (unificiation church –PIA questions), Douglas (suicide), Baechler
(suicide), Steve Taylor (parasuicide), Adams (interviewing police)
 Observation (PO/NPO, covert/overt)- Venkatesh (gang leader for a day), Patrick (Glasgow gang),Bourgois –
crack dealers, Dobash’s (domestic violence), Barker (Unificiation church), Goffman (asylums), S Cohen (mods
& rockers), Cicoural (police bias), Smith & Grey (institutional racism by police), Humphries (homosexual
encounters in public toiliets)
 Official Statistics – Durkheim (suicide), Shaw & McKay (social disorganisation), Murray (welfare dependency &
crime)
 Mass media texts- content analysis (Fawbert – hoodies); thematic /discourse analysis (S Cohen – mods and
rockers)

8.  Personal documents – Jacobs (suicide notes), S Taylor (medical docs – suicide) = authenticity / credibility/
unrepresentativeness