Lesson 8 – Critical
Sociological Perspectives
Robert Wonser
Introduction to Criminology
Crime and Delinquency
1
Introduction
• Social process explanations
• Crime result of interaction between
individuals
• Micro-level view
Introduction
• Critical perspectives highlight the ways
in which people and institutions respond
to crime and criminals
• The definition of crime
• Role of power
Labeling Theory
• Addresses three issues
• The definition of deviance/crime
• Possible discrimination in the
application of official labeling
• The effect of labeling on continued
criminality
Relativist Definition of Crime
and Deviance
• Most theories take an absolutist definition
of crime/deviance
• Remember the social construction of
reality?
• Labeling takes a relativist definition
• Nothing automatically makes behavior
criminal/deviant
The Imposition of the Deviant
Label
• Official labeling
• By criminal justice system
• William Chambliss
• Saints and Roughnecks
The Negative Consequences of
Labeling
• Interactions with others shape selfconceptions and behavior
• Frank Tannenbaum
• A person labeled deviant becomes the
thing he is described as being
• Howard Becker
• On becoming a marijuana user
The Negative Consequences of
Labeling
• Labeling promotes continued deviance
• Official criminal justice system actions
have detrimental impact on delinquency
• The labeled becomes the label
The Negative Consequences of
Labeling
• Labeling theory does not focus on the
initial act, but on subsequent actions
• Edwin Lemert
• Secondary deviance - when a deviant
event comes to the attention of social
control agents, who then apply a
negative label
6 Stages in the Labeling Process
• 1. initial criminal act
• 2. detection by the justice system
• 3. decision to label
• 4. creation of a new identity
• 5. acceptance of labels
• 6. deviance amplification
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Evaluation of Labeling Theory
• Controversial
• Presents passive view of criminals
• Fails to explain primary deviance, crimes
that have little influence on the actor
and can be quickly forgotten
• Problem with decriminalization as
primary policy plan
Crime and Shame
• John Braitwaite
• Disintegrative shaming
• Stigma
• Reintegrative shaming
Restorative Justice
• Policy that seeks to restore the social
bond between the offender and the
community
• Based on Braithwaite and labeling
theory
• Still too new to determine if it works
Restorative Justice
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Conflict and Radical Theories
• Law is key part of the struggle between
powerful and the powerless
• Power use law to control the powerless
• Applies to:
• Formation of law
• Operations of criminal justice system
Consensus and Conflict
Perspectives
• Consensus
• Social situations help create social
stability
• Conflict
• Social institutions serve the interests of
the powerful in society and are
dysfunctional for many other members
of society
Conflict Perspectives
• conflict criminology holds that crime in capitalist
societies cannot be adequately understood without a
recognition that such societies are dominated by a
wealthy elite whose continuing dominance requires
the economic exploitation of others, and that the
ideas, institutions and practices of such societies are
designed and managed in order to ensure that such
groups remain marginalized, oppressed and
vulnerable.
• Members of marginalized and oppressed groups may
sometimes turn to crime in order to gain the material
wealth that apparently brings equality in capitalist
societies, or simply in order to survive.
Evaluation of Conflict Theory
• Explains origins of some criminal laws
and types of crime
• Evidence is inconsistent
• Historical studies provide the best
evidence
Radical Theories in Criminology
• Marx and Engels
• Wrote little about crime
• William Chambliss
• Development of vagrancy laws which
forced vagrants to work, preventing
them from traveling, and setting a low
wage standard to bolster England’s
economy.
Radical Theories in Criminology
• Contemporary radical views
• Instrumental Marxism views the criminal
justice system as only a tool for capitalist
to control the poor and impose their
standards of behavior on all of society.
• Structural Marxism believes that the law is
not always working for the rich and
against the poor. The law is designed to
keep the capitalist system operating
efficiently.
Evaluation of Radical
Criminology
• Vigorously attacked by consensus
criminologists
• Attack democracies while overlooking
oppressive nature of authoritarian
governments
• Lack of research
• Staunchly defended by critical
criminologists
Left Realism and Peacemaking
Criminology
• Left idealism of instrumental Marxists
• Street crime = political rebellion
• Crime causes real distress
• Peacemaking criminology
• Views crime as one of many forms of
suffering
• People must find inner peace
Feminist Theories
• There are many feminist perspectives in
criminology
• Criminologists must consider role of
gender in crime
• Feminist theories should be used to
reduce gender inequality
Feminist Theories
• Liberal feminists - focuses on securing equal
rights for women and men through legal
reform, outlawing gender discriminatory
policies and practices. In addition, liberal
feminism sees gender socialization as
critical for teaching males and females to
behave more alike than different from one
another.
• Marxist feminists - social class inequality in
capitalist society gives rise to other
inequalities, including sexism.
Feminist Theories
• Radical feminists - maintain that gender inequality
cuts across all racial and ethnic groups and social
classes.
• patriarchy characterizes all social institutions, including
the criminal justice system.
• focuses largely on women as victims of crime (especially
violent crimes perpetrated by men), which serves to
shore up male dominance over women as well as
compulsory heterosexuality.
• Socialist feminists - argue that class inequality and
sexism interact to shape criminal offending and
victimization experiences.
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Scope of Feminist Theories
• Victimization of women
• Masculinity and crime
Explanations of Women’s
Criminality
• Doing gender
• Gendered nature of crime
Power-Control Theory
• Gendered processes of family life that results in
delinquency; the view that gender differences in
crime are a function of economic power (class
position) and parental control (paternalistic vs.
egalitarian families)
• John Hagan
• Patriarchal households
• Egalitarian households
• Studies provide mixed results
• Generally find that working-class patriarchal families
control their children more than other types of families
Women in the Criminal Justice
System
• Chivalry hypothesis
• Evil woman hypothesis
• Equal treatment hypothesis
• Empirical evidence inconsistent across all
hypotheses
Feminism
• One of the most important
advances in criminology
• Still relatively new