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SOCIOLOGY
MODULE 2; CRIME AND DEVIANCE
CONTENT 1 - Concepts (Alayna)
(a) Social order.
(b) Social control.
(c) Deviance.
(d) Crime.
(e) Delinquency.
(f) Recidivism.
(g) Profiling.
A) SOCIAL ORDER
Social order is the link between all social structures in a society which attempt to ensure peace
and harmony in social relations, arising from a set of shared values that are agreed to and
practised across all social institutions and which assist in maintaining and enforcing the norms of
society. Social institutions and social practices conserve, maintain and enforce “normal” ways of
relating and behaving. The concept refers to all those aspects of society which remain relatively
constant over time.
● Functionalists argue that social order is achieved because people need each other. As
society moved from traditional to industrial, the development of different social
institutions facilitated the needs of people and created social order. These social
institutions interlock and work together to bring equilibrium. Durkheim argued that
society has a “collective conscience” which is a shared collection of beliefs, values,
attitudes, and knowledge.
● Marxists believe there is no such thing as a social order. People are unconsciously forced
to conform to the different rules and values set by the elites in society. This is called
false-class consciousness. Working class people are exploited in society and are unaware
of their exploitation. Marx believed that real social order can only be achieved in a
communist society.
● Interactionalist believe that social order is a matter of a shared value system. People
interact with each other through this value system and maintain order in society.
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B) SOCIAL CONTROL
Social control refers to ways devised by society to maintain order. It is the avenue through which
society seeks to encourage consensus and discourage dissent. Social control is needed in order to
build social order through. It includes the mechanisms created by society to ensure stability over
time. It is regulation and enforcement of norms. All societies practice social control.
● The underlying goal of social control is to maintain social order, an arrangement of
practices and behaviours on which society’s members base their daily lives. It therefore
goes hand in hand with deviance and exists to prevent negative deviance i.e., deviance
which can be damaging to society.
● Social control is ensured through the use of sanctions, which can be positive as well as
negative.
● Positive sanctions are rewards given for conforming norms. A promotion at work is a
positive sanction for working hard. Negative sanctions are punishments for violating
norms.
● Sociologists also classify sanctions as formal or informal. Formal sanctions are ways to
officially recognize and enforce norm violations. Informal sanctions emerge in face to
face social interactions.
C) DEVIANCE
Deviance refers to the breaking of social norms going against the rules for behaviour in a society.
It is a social construct that lives and has its strength in the minds of people. Whether those rules
are formal or unwritten or informal expected norms of behaviour. Society establishes
punishments and sanctions to curb deviance because it is seen as a threat to social order.
Criminal behaviour is usually deviant but not all deviant behaviour is criminal. Deviance
includes both criminal and non-criminal acts but is quite difficult to pin down what members of
any society or group regard as deviant behaviour.
Downes and Rock (2007) suggest that the ambiguity is a key feature of rule breaking as people
are frequently unsure whether a particular episode is truly deviant or what deviance is. Their
judgement will depend on the context in which it occurs, who the person is, what they know
about them and what their motives might be.
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D) CRIME
Crime is used to describe law breaking behaviour and actions. Depending on the laws of a
society it varies whether a criminal like behaviour or actions can be deemed illegal. Criminal
behaviour is also deviant behaviour. The definitions can take many varieties of crime such as
assault, murder, extortion, kidnapping, and white-collar crimes (committed by businessesmoney laundering).
Gottfredson and Hirschi (1990). “Crimes are acts of force or fraud undertaken in pursuit of
self-interest. They point to the reality that, every day, in myriad ways, a larger cross-section of
the population than we realise is engaged in committing crimes from petty larceny and traffic
violations to drug use and tax evasion.
Newburn (2007) suggests that crime is basically a label that is attached to certain forms of
behaviour which are prohibited by the state (government), and have some legal penalty against
them. While crime therefore seems easy to define, as the law states what a criminal act is, there
is no act that is criminal. An act only becomes a crime when agents of the state label that act as
criminal in a particular context.
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E) DELINQUENCY
Delinquency refers to the wrong doing and therefore to all acts in social life where an offence has
been committed. If someone does not comply with the obligation is considered a delinquent or
deviant act. Delinquency also refers to the commission of offences by youth which are not
considered offences for adults.
Delinquency refers to wrongdoing (or deviance) and therefore to all acts in social life where an
offence has been committed. If someone does not comply with an obligation, such as paying
her/his mortgage, that is a delinquent or deviant act. We can be ‘delinquent’ in many ways, for
example being careless or neglectful, persistently late for appointments, or procrastinating.
Delinquency can also refer to serious crimes but, to a large extent, the term tends to be used in
two instances:
1. For misdemeanours – that is, minor offences such as being drunk and disorderly, using
obscene language, stealing, fighting, traffic violations, vandalism. These acts warrant, in
most instances, only probation or a light fine.
2. For juveniles who commit offences. These can be serious offences or misdemeanours that
are committed by young persons, mainly teenagers and young adults (often referred to as
juvenile delinquents). Much sociological theorising has been concerned with explaining
group or collective delinquency of boys and gangs.
Delinquency also refers to the commission of offences by youth which are not considered
offences for adults. Status offences, as they are called, include underage sexual intercourse,
running away from home, consuming alcohol, wandering, being uncontrollable at home and
immoral conduct.
F) RECIDIVISM
Recidivism is the habitual relapse of an offender who, once released from prison, continues to
commit crimes and returns to prison. . Researchers have attributed recidivism to a plethora of
factors ranging from criminal peers to social stigmatisation and inadequate skills necessary for
employment. Extenuating factors, such as drug abuse, may further stigmatise ex-prisoners,
pulling them further from reintegration into society and thus facilitating further crimes.
Recidivism can work cyclically by creating further strain on prison systems, and ultimately
reducing the resources for the rehabilitation of those within it. Researchers have suggested the
introduction of programs focussing on psychological well-being, education, and vocational
skills, as well as lessening harsh reconviction laws, as ways of reducing recidivism and its
subsequent toll on criminal justice systems.
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In 2011, Jamaica’s recidivism rate stood at 26% while Trinidad & Tobago’s was as high as 55%.
Some reasons for such high recidivism rates are:
● Detection rates by the police are low – around 30% in the Caribbean, with the conviction
rate for serious crimes at 10%.
● Most prisons are overcrowded and violent places where to survive inmates have to be
aggressive and violent themselves.
● The enormous backlog in cases before the courts and the other inefficiencies in the
criminal justice system means that persons remain in prisons much longer than they
should and are continually subject to this kind of violence.
● Prisons are not carrying out their rehabilitation function of helping inmates to be
successfully reintroduced into the society as law-abiding citizens
● Governments and prison authorities seem to prefer to institute harsher punishments rather
than try alternatives to incarceration such as strengthening community policing and
building literacy skills as well as providing vocational training.
● Someone who has a prison record finds great difficulty in securing employment.
G) PROFILING
Profiling refers to the procedures used by crime detection to record and analyse how criminals
behave, so that they are better able to predict, with some degree of certainty, that persons with
those traits are likely to commit certain crimes.
CONTENT 2 - Perspectives on Crime & Deviance (Renell & Shreeya)
(a) Biological.
(b) Consensus/Functionalist.
(c) Conflict/Marxist.
(d) Interactionist.
(e) Subcultural.
(f) Feminist.
A) Biological Perspective
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Early studies on crime and deviance sought to show that criminals were biologically different
from the rest of the population and that heredity explained their behaviour. This view is called
the pathological perspective in criminality.
Key Figures:
● Cesare Lombroso (1835–1909) thought that some persons were born with a
predisposition to crime based on their biological inheritance. They even had bodily
characteristics that marked them as different, as not having evolved in the normal way. In
his study of criminals within the Italian penal system, he found that they suffered from ill
health and had growth abnormalities. The elites at the time agreed with his thesis because
it diverted attention from the social problems afflicting Italy in the 19th century and made
crime into an abnormal event committed by abnormal people.
● Critics pointed out however that Lambroso’s logic and methodology were flawed. By
choosing prisoners he was limiting himself to the poorest of the population who would
tend to have stunted growth and nutritional deficiencies. Their main criticism however
was that he ignored the role of social factors in criminality.
● Thomas Kelly has studied correlations between neurological disorders and offending. He
based his claims on the biological-medical model which regards disease as the major
factor explaining criminality. He cited examples of criminals who had injuries or
malformations of their brains. Critics point out that physical and physiological
abnormalities could also be due to poverty and malnutrition.
● Diana Fishbein linked anti-social behaviours to biological effects caused by hormone
imbalances, drug abuse, alcoholism, nutrition and injury. Her thesis is that anti-social and
criminal behaviour are almost always related to an underlying medical/biological cause.
Sociologists criticise these theories as reductionist in that they attempt to explain all
criminal acts everywhere in terms of a biological malfunction. Contemporary sociologists
readily agree that genetic factors may be at the root of some criminal acts but in the
majority of cases crimes are committed by ordinary individuals who look ‘normal’. Even
the argument about a genetic predisposition towards crime has to address the idea that the
societal context in which someone grows up (nurture) may well overcome their biological
make-up (nature)
B) Functionalist Theory of Crime
One functionalist theory argues that we define certain acts as criminal because they violate the
moral beliefs of society. People deviate from these beliefs through evil influences, inadequate
socialisation, or some pathological condition. Criminals are wrong and have somehow failed to
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live up to the norms demanded of them. The functionalist view also argues that crime may be
necessary for the society in which it takes place. Crime is the violation of certain social norms.
When those violations are punished, the others in the society understand the norms more
thoroughly and are encouraged to respect them. Crime also makes people more aware of the
interests they have in common.
Key Figures:
➔ Emile Durkheim
● The functionalist explanation of deviance is based mainly on the work of Durkheim, who
wrote around the end of the nineteenth century.
● He argues that deviant behaviour may be understood only in relation to the moral code it
violates. In highly complex, rapidly changing societies, some individuals come to feel
that moral consensus has weakened. There is therefore a social reason for crime and
deviance. According to Durkheim, order in society is based on the collective conscience,
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but this is not a natural state (normally a state of self-interest and greed exists) and we are
socialised into it.
● Social order in society is reinforced by law and the collective conscience. Of these two
enforcement agencies, law is the weaker, but in periods of great social strain or change,
the collective conscience is weakened. The weakened collective consciousness develops
into a state of anomie, and society reverts to a state of greed and self-interest, which leads
to the collapse of order and harmony. The emergence of deviant and criminal behaviour is
due to this state of anomie. Durkheim refers to anomie as ‘the condition of normlessness,
in which values and norms have little impact and the culture no longer provides adequate
guidelines for behaviour.’Anomie is thus a harmful and dangerous state. Durkheim
claims that a limited amount of crime is necessary and beneficial to society, so much so
that society could not exist without some form of deviance. He did not simply look for
what was ‘wrong’ with the criminals and deviants.
●
Crime, in his view, was not the result of a sick individual, nor was it ‘unnatural,’ but
rather it is an integral part of society and performed a crucial function. Too much crime,
however, is bad for society, and may help bring about its collapse. Thus, in any society,
the amount of crime that exists determines whether crime is good or bad for society.
● This contrasts with the typical view that crime is harmful to society. They observed that
in modern society traditional ties, bonds and community networks were being eroded by
the conditions of urban living. Individuals operated for the most part as autonomous
beings and because of that the collective conscience was weakened. In other words, the
moral force of the society was being diluted because people no longer seemed willing to
honour their obligations and focused instead on self interest. Such individualism,
according to Durkheim, induced a sense of anxiety and disorientation as people operated
without the traditional norms and standards of behaviour. Anomie is the term he used to
describe this sense of normlessness in urban life – when people felt that there were few
rules, norms and standards to guide them. He felt that this was a precondition for crime
and deviance because it meant that individuals no longer felt integrated into the society.”
There is no society known where a more or less developed criminality is not found under
different forms. No people exist whose morality is not daily infringed upon. We must
therefore call crime necessary and declare that it cannot be non-existent, that the
fundamental conditions of social organisation, as they are understood, logically imply it.”
(Durkheim et al. 2010, p. 362). When Functionalists speak of something being functional
for the society, they mean that it encourages consensus and social solidarity, those things
that hold the society together.
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● In the quote, Durkheim is saying that crime is expected because of how society is
organised. However, crime that was out of control, or increasing, was dysfunctional for
the society.
Three positive functions of crime include:
1. SOCIAL REGULATION (reaffirming the boundaries of acceptable behaviour) – Each
time the Police arrest a person, they are making it clear to the rest of society that the
particular action concerned is unacceptable. In contemporary society newspapers also
help to perform the publicity function, with their often-lurid accounts of criminal acts. In
effect, the courts and the media are ‘broadcasting’ the boundaries of acceptable
behaviour, warning others not to breach the walls of the law (and therefore society)
2. SOCIAL INTEGRATION (Social Cohesion) – A second function of crime is to actually
strengthen social cohesion. For example, when particularly horrific crimes have been
committed the whole community joins together in outrage and the sense of belonging to a
community is therefore strengthened.
3. Social Change – A further action performed by the criminals is to provide a constant test
of the boundaries of permitted action. When the law is clearly out of step with the
feelings and values of the majority, legal reform is necessary. Criminals therefore,
perform a crucial service in helping the law to reflect the wishes of the population and
legitimising social change.
Durkheim argued that crime only became dysfunctional when there was too much or too little of
it – too much and social order would break down, too little and there would not be sufficient
capacity for positive social change.
Criticism of Durkheim’s View:
● He did not offer any real explanation as to why certain people are more likely to commit
crimes than others; he was more interested in the relationship between deviance and order
in society.
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● He ignored the concept of power. It is generally accepted that in all societies, some social
groups have more opportunity than the majority of the population to influence the
law-making process.
● Functionalists assume that society has universal norms and values that are reinforced by
certain crimes being punished in public. Postmodernists argue society is so diverse, there
is no such thing as ‘normal’.
● Robert Merton adopted the term anomie and used it to describe the strain felt by those
members who could not conform to the norms expected of them. For example, the ideal
of material success (the American Dream) was a generalised social and cultural
expectation (a norm) in American society. Merton’s strain theory of crime and deviance
states that those who could not achieve success through legitimate means experienced
social strain which encouraged them to innovate and adapt, sometimes leading to deviant
and criminal behaviours. Merton tended to focus on members of the lower social classes
who were experiencing strain because of unequal opportunities. This theory shows that
all social norms and cultural practices are not necessarily functional for society. In
accordance with the Functionalist perspective, Merton’s strain theory relates deviance
and crime to the social structure. Strain comes about because of the lack of fit between
the goals of the society and the availability of means to get there for those in a particular
social location. Crime and deviance are an adaptation or response to one’s unfavourable
social position. You can also see that the notion of consensus is strong – everyone accepts
such cultural goals to the point that if their aspirations are blocked anomie results. Later
on, other theorists continued to add to strain theory and the concept of anomie.
●
They critiqued a strictly structural account of the causes of deviance and attempted to
address certain concerns that Merton had not expressly tackled, namely why some people
commit crime and others do not, how to best explain group participation in crime, as well
as criminal acts which are not related to economic opportunity. Theorists focusing on
subcultures sought to provide some responses to these concerns.
Merton’s Modes of Adaptation:
➢ Conformity: People accept legitimate goals set by society and have access to approved
means. They continue to accept goals and means, even though failure is the likely
outcome.
➢ Innovation: The response when a person accepts goals set by society but rejects socially
acceptable means, for example, finding another (legal) way of making money, they
therefore resort to unacceptable means such as crime, for example, fraud, theft, etc.
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➢ Ritualism: People conform to society’s means, but a person may lose sight of goals.
People may participate in socially desirable means but lack interest in achieving goals.
➢ Retreatism: A person rejects both the means and the goals, and ‘drops out of the “rat
race”’ (for example, alcoholics, drug abusers, the homeless).
➢ Rebellion: Rejection of both means and goals by people who wish to replace socially
approved goals and means with an alternative system (for example, political radicals or
terrorists).
Criticisms of Merton:
● He does not specify why a particular person chooses one form of deviance over another.
● Merton argues that the different levels of ritualistic and innovative behaviour by a social
class are a reflection of different emphases in socialisation between the middle class and
the working class. The working class is deviant because it is socialised less rigidly.
Criticisms of Strain Theory:
● Firstly, not all working-class individuals turn to crime, and so we need something else to
explain why some of them do and some of them do not. Subcultural theorists argued that
the role of working-class subcultures plugs this gap in the explanation – deviant
subcultures provide rewards for individuals who commit crime.
● Secondly, Merton’s reliance on official statistics means he overestimates the extent of
working-class crime and underestimates the extent of middle class, or white collar crime.
● Thirdly, Strain theory only really explains economic crime, it doesn’t really explain
violent crime.
● Marxists point out that the lack of equality of opportunity is at the heart of the Capitalist
system. (Elites make the system work for them, which disadvantages the lower classes).
C) Conflict Theory of Crime
Conflict theory has many approaches. Traditional Marxism reflects the theories of Marx and his
followers. Neo-Marxism uses a Marxist analysis of social life but includes methods and ideas
from other perspectives. Within neo-Marxism, there are different emphases, for example;
Critical, Radical and Subcultural perspectives.
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Traditional Marxism Karl Marx’s (1867) analysis of capitalism and how it exploited workers
showed that capitalism was the source of crime – it was criminogenic.
● Inherent in the nature of capitalism is the potential for crime and deviance to arise.
Workers are systematically exploited and impoverished. Theft becomes a means of
survival.
● Frustration at the powerlessness in their lives leads workers to periodic instances of
violence. Crime is a rational outlet for the inequalities they suffer.
● The social institutions of the land (the superstructure) support the elites who dominate the
economy (the substructure). The legal and judicial systems are designed to serve the
interests of the capitalists. Contrary to Functionalism, Marxism says that laws are not
based on values consensus but on social control. This is inevitable when one group is
being deliberately blocked by another from attaining social mobility. Laws therefore
preserve the inequalities in society.
● Theorists say that states create laws and rules to maintain power and to preserve the
position of the powerful and the elites (bourgeoisie) ; this theory therefore uncovers
bias in the criminal justice system and explains crime within an economic, political and
social context.
● Conflict theorists examine the role of government and controlling elites in society.
Instead of labelling people as criminals, they identify inequality and governments as the
real culprits in the causing of crime.
Neo-Marxism
Neo-Marxism describes the views of those today who employ a Marxist perspective but go
beyond a strict focus on the economy and try to evaluate how the laws and state institutions
reinforce the inequality suffered by workers. In some instances they employ a wider Conflict
perspective as well. Conflict theorists regard groups in society as being in competition and
conflict for material goods, rights and freedoms. The balance of power and privilege in the
society determines who gets the larger share.
Key Figures:
● David Gordon was of the view that capitalism encourages competition in society because
it is based on maximising profits. Under such conditions crime and deviance become
rational means that persons can use to attain social goals. Crime is inevitable in capitalist
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societies and can be found in both the working class and more affluent groups. However,
the majority of persons who are charged by the police are from the working class and this
indicates a systematic attempt to criminalise that class. Law enforcement targets
individuals, who bear the burden of police harassment, arrests and imprisonment. But it is
really the capitalist system of economic relations that keeps workers in a position of
want.
● The superstructure (legal and justice systems) which supports the infrastructure is skewed
in favour of the elite class which may be unnecessarily punitive towards the lower classes
as these crimes would have been identified and enacted into law by the upper classes as
they seek to maintain their economic advantage over the lower classes ( Mankoff, 1976)
● William Chambliss and Milton Mankoff (1976) are Conflict theorists who focus
specifically on the inequalities arising when the police and the justice system selectively
enforce laws. In the United States laws upholding civil rights receive much less attention
from the police than those having to do with drugs or homicide. There is a distinct
association of street crimes with the lower classes and these tend to be actively pursued
by the law. At the same time there seems to be a reluctance to enforce equity legislation
because the authorities are mindful that they will run afoul of powerful corporations. The
powerless are easier targets to prosecute. These theorists also make the point that laws
dealing with the protection of private property play a major role in capitalist society. Such
laws are geared to protect the interests of the wealthy because the poor seldom own much
property. Laws therefore are a reflection of what is important to the ruling classes. The
study of crime and deviance in the Marxist tradition deals with how the elites manage to
criminalise the underclass through the selective enforcement of laws.
● Laureen Snider (1993) made the point that the emphasis on profit-making in capitalism
even lures those in the higher social strata into criminal activity. In white collar and
corporate crimes such as insider trading and fraud enormous sums are stolen, yet there
has been a reluctance to charge and imprison members of the higher social classes for
these crimes, while the police, the legal system and the media continue to treat murder,
break-ins, theft, and so on as the most serious crimes in the society. This criminalises the
poor compared to higher status groups. Snider extends this analysis to corporate crime.
Her critics however point to the fact that similar disasters to Bhopal have occurred in
communist societies (e.g. the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, in the then Soviet Union) and
that, especially in developing countries, health and safety standards are poor. In addition,
in the developed world there is much legislation on worker safety. Nevertheless, Marxists
respond by saying that simply having the laws is an example of false consciousness since
in actual fact the rules are flouted with impunity or incur only a small fine.
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● Sinder (1993) underscores this belief when she posits that capitalists states are reluctant
to pass laws that regulate large capitalists' concerns as it may threaten both the
profitability of the corporations and the state in which they operate. She goes further in
observing that in fact the state seeks to protect its interest as a number of concessions
would have been given by them to these capitalist ventures and they are reluctant to pass
laws which could threaten their investment. The banking industry in the United States
that was partially responsible for the recession in 2008.
D) The Interactionist Perspective on Crime
The interactionist perspective takes a micro (small-scale) view of society and social order and
analyses social interactions accordingly. The main idea behind this approach is that the definition
of what is deviant is socially negotiated. Another idea from the interactionist approach is that a
person’s experience may lead to a deviant career; that is, there is a social process that takes
certain people down a path that eventually leads to rejection by society. Social process theories
are concerned with the process by which people become criminals. These theories are interested
in the social institutions, such as families and peer groups, that may cause a person to engage in
criminal activity. As discussed earlier, deviance differs from one culture to another and also over
time. It also differs according to where and with whom you are at any given moment. In order to
understand the interactionist view, it is a good idea to think about the things that happen to
ordinary people during their lives, that influence how they behave and the choices they make.
Labelling Theory Labelling theorists investigate why a person’s behaviour is labelled as deviant
and the effects of being so labelled. Labelling theorists began exploring how and why certain
acts were defined as criminal or deviant and why other similar acts were not. They questioned
how and why certain people became defined as criminal or deviant. Such theorists view
criminals not as evil people who engaged in wrong acts but as individuals who had a criminal
status placed upon them by both the criminal justice system and the community at large. From
this point of view, criminal acts are thus not as significant as the social reaction to them.
Deviance and its control, then, involve a process of social definition. This involves the response
of society to an individual’s behaviour and subsequently influences how an individual views
himself or herself. Labelling a primary deviant as a criminal may lead to secondary deviance. In
other words, the label may stigmatise a person, and the person’s response may be to commit
further acts of deviance, thereby leading to a self-fulfilling prophecy. Labelling is particularly
important for juvenile offenders. Not all juvenile offenders are labelled as delinquents.
Lower-class youth, for instance, are more likely to be labelled as delinquent. Moreover, they are
less likely to know their legal rights and are usually unable to afford legal counsel. The theorists
listed below are important contributors to Labelling theory where crime and deviance are
concerned and they operate from a Symbolic Interaction perspective:
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● Howard Becker (1963) Howard Becker is the most influential theorist in the interactionist
school. He claimed that individuals seek to impose their ‘order’ or their ‘reality’ on
others. He developed labelling theory, which explains the above assertion and shows how
labelling effectively changes the course of people’s lives and may even lead to a deviant
career path. He states, ‘Deviance is not a quality of the act the person commits, but rather
a consequence of the application by others of rules and sanctions to an offender (socially
constructed). The deviant is one to whom that label has successfully been applied;
‘deviant behaviour is behaviour that people label.’
● How the powerful label the powerless
Main Ideas of Labelling Theory
● It focuses on the reaction of other people and on the subsequent effects of those reactions
that create deviance.
● When it becomes known that a person has engaged in deviant acts, he or she is then
segregated from society and thus labelled, ‘whore,’ ‘thief,’ ‘abuser,’ ‘junkie,’ and the
like.
● Labelling may bring into play power differentials and have further detrimental
consequences for those that are labelled.
● This process of segregation creates ‘outsiders,’ who are outcasts of society, and who then
begin to associate with other individuals who have also been cast out.
● Labelling may lead to a self-fulfilling prophecy as the rule-breaker enters a career of
deviance or becomes what others expect.
● As more and more people begin to think of these individuals as deviants, they respond to
them as such. The deviant then reacts to such a response by continuing to engage in the
behaviour society now expects.
● Labelling has real consequences in that it can amplify the deviant behaviour. This may
lead to deviant careers or activities that result in crime.
- Edwin H. Sutherland (1939): Differential Association
Edwin H. Sutherland posited another social learning theory of crime. He introduced the concept
of differential association in his theory of crime causation. Differential association posits that
criminal behaviour is learned in the same way that any other behaviour is learned. Sutherland’s
theory contains nine principles that explain the process by which a person becomes a criminal.
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These are as follows:
1. Criminal behaviour is not innate, it is learned. Thus, criminal behaviour is learned based
on interaction with others and the values received during that interaction. We learn from
others values that either support or oppose criminal behaviour.
2.
Criminal behaviour is learned through a process of communication. This process is
active and open-ended.
3. Most learning takes place in close, personal groups such as friends, family, workers, and
sports teams. Sutherland believed that it is these primary groups that allow people to
define themselves. The theory does not emphasise who one’s associates are but rather
focuses upon the definitions provided by those associations. Once techniques are learned,
values (or definitions) supporting the criminal behaviour may be learned from just about
anyone.
4. The learning of criminal behaviour involves the learning of techniques of committing
crime, and the learning of motives and attitudes.
5. People learn motives, and attitudes about the law, that are either positive or negative.
Once again, this process takes place in primary and intimate social groups.
6. People will differentially associate with the attitudes and motives that are favourable to
violating the law. That is, if a person has been provided with excessive definitions that
are favourable to violating the law, he or she will elect to behave criminally
7. Differential associations depend on specific variables: frequency, duration, priority and
intensity. Frequency refers to how often learning takes place, and duration refers to how
long the learning episodes are. The term ‘priority’ is used to specify the importance of the
age of which criminal learning began. Presumably, if a person is exposed to criminal
behaviour at an early age, the greater the impact on long-term behaviour. Sutherland uses
the term intensity to refer to the importance or the prestige of the learning source.
8. Learning criminal behaviour entails the same mechanisms that are involved in any other
type of learning.Criminal behaviour is not necessarily an expression of needs and values.
Not all homeless people, for example, steal in order to eat. Sutherland also noted that
individuals with an excess of criminal definitions will be more open to new criminal
definitions and will be less receptive to anti-criminal definitions.
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Criticisms:
● Sutherland’s differential association does not specifically explain why everyone in
contact with criminal behaviour patterns does not become criminal. However, the answer
is simple. Sutherland does not tell us explicitly that individuals become criminals by
associating with other criminals, but rather, that a person becomes delinquent because of
an ‘excess of definitions favourable to violation of the law over definitions unfavourable
to violation of the law.’ The key word is ‘definitions.’
● Differential association also fails to tell us how the first criminal became a criminal.
● Despite some criticisms, the theory has had an important impact on the study of crime.
Other social learning theories have been based upon differential association.
● Charles Horton Cooley put forward the idea of the looking-glass self which theories that
how we see ourselves is a reflection of how we think others see us. We may not have
much confirmation that this is how others see us but how we believe others see us is a
strong motivation for our self-beliefs and actions.
● David Matza studied delinquent youth and raised several issues, provoking a critique of
Functionalist and neo-Marxist perspectives. He was sceptical of findings that suggested
that delinquents had a distinct subculture and therefore had different values from groups
in mainstream society. The boys in his (1964) study ‘drifted’ into delinquent behaviours
through boredom or being led by friends. It was in no way a permanent status and they
could easily drift back into conformist behaviours as their social context changed. In
Interpretive theory the idea of agency means that the individual may deny that the act was
so bad, or they may condemn the victim as someone who deserved such treatment, or
even rationalise that it was the right thing to do. Through such mental manoeuvres
delinquents are able to look upon themselves as ‘normal’ members of society.
Hirschi (1969): Social Control Theory
Travis Hirschi’s social control theory argues that everyone has the potential to be law-violating;
however, fear deters most people because they do not want to jeopardise the social bonds that
they have with others. Drifters, for example, have the greatest likelihood of committing crime,
for they have few social bonds at stake. Hirschi attempts to explain why individuals choose to
conform to the norm. He presents four social bonds that show the relationship between criminal
acts, socialisation and conformity. The four social bonds include attachment, commitment,
involvement and belief. Hirschi believes that the stronger that these four bonds are, the less
likely one is to commit criminal acts.
The elements of the bonds are as follows:
17
1. Attachment – a bond that refers to one’s interest in others. Certain attachment bonds are
those to parents, to school and to peers. The parent-child interaction is very important.
The strength of the parent-child relationship includes intimacy between the parent and the
child and the identification that exists between the two. A child’s attachment to school
depends on how the institution is regarded by the child, and the extent to which the child
feels accepted by teachers and peers. Hirschi believes that the strength of each of these
bonds may serve as a deterrent to delinquent behaviour.
2. Commitment – a bond that refers to the mechanism whereby participation in social
activities attaches an individual to the moral and ethical code of society. This bond
involves time, energy and effort placed in conventional lines of action. Hirschi believes
that a lack of commitment to different things such as life, property, and reputation may
cause an individual to participate in delinquent or criminal acts.
3. Involvement – this bond concerns a preoccupation with activities that promote the
conventional interests of society. Hirschi believes that an individual’s heavy involvement
in conventional activities does not leave time to engage in criminal activities. He also
believes that involvement in school, family and recreation insulates a juvenile from
potential delinquent behaviour that may be a result of idleness.
4. Belief – a bond that refers to the respect for laws and the people and institutions that
enforce such laws. Hirshci argues that people who live in common social settings share
similar human values. If such beliefs are weakened, or absent, one is more likely to
engage in criminal acts. Also, if people believe that laws are unfair, this bond to society
weakens, and the likelihood of committing delinquent behaviour rises. An adolescent will
be less likely to engage in criminal behaviour if he or she is attached to parents, commits
time and effort to conventional lines of behaviour, and believes in community values. In
addition, such an adolescent will probably be involved in school activities, thereby
leaving little time to engage in criminal behaviour. There is some support for this
hypothesis. Adolescents who are strongly attached to their parents have been found to be
less likely to engage in criminal behaviour.
E) Subcultural Theories
A subculture, a subdivision within a dominant culture, has its own norms, values and belief
system. Subcultures may emerge when individuals in similar circumstances find themselves
virtually isolated or neglected by mainstream society. Thus, they group together for mutual
support. Subcultures exist within the larger society, not apart from it. The members of the
subculture are different from the dominant culture. Subcultural theories emerged in an attempt to
account for relatively higher delinquency rates among lower-class males who constitute teenage
18
gangs. Subculture theories argue that delinquent subcultures emerged in response to the special
problems faced by members of such groups. The subculture theories are extensions of strain,
social disorganisation and differential association theories. Subculture theories help to explain
why subcultures emerge (extension of strain), why they take a particular shape and why they
continue from one generation to another (extension of differential association). We will explain
the subculture theories proposed by Albert Cohen, (subculture of delinquency), Richard Cloward
and Lloyd Ohlin (differential opportunity) and by Walter Miller (lower-class focal concerns).
What did Cloward and Ohlin add to Merton's strain theory?
Illegitimate opportunities is a sociology theory developed in 1960 by Richard Cloward and
Lloyd Ohlin. The theory states that crimes result from a high number of illegitimate
opportunities and not from a lack of legitimate ones. The theory was created from Merton's strain
theory to help address juvenile delinquency.
1. Criminal Subcultures are characterised by utilitarian crimes, such as theft. They develop
in more stable working class areas where there is an established pattern of crime. This
provided a learning opportunity and career structure for aspiring young criminals, and an
alternative to the legitimate job market as a means of achieving financial rewards. Adult
criminals exercise social control as the values and norms are passed down, over to the
young to stop them carrying out non-utilitarian delinquent acts – such as vandalism –
which might attract the attention of the police.
2. Conflict subcultures are characterised by non-utilitarian crimes and emerge in socially
disorganised areas where there is a high rate of population turnover and a consequent lack
of social cohesion. These prevent the formation of stable adult criminal subcultures
Conflict subcultures are characterised by violence, gang warfare, ‘mugging’ and other
street crime. Both approved and illegal means of achieving mainstream goals are blocked
or limited, and young people express their frustration at this situation through violence or
street crime, and at least obtain status through success in subcultural peer-group values.
3. Retreatist subcultures emerge among those lower class youth who are ‘double failures’
– they have failed to succeed in both (legitimate and illegitimate) mainstream society and
in the crime and gang cultures above. The response is a retreat into drug addiction and
alcoholism, paid for by petty theft, shoplifting and prostitution. Merton states that
retreatism is when there is a rejection of both cultural goals and institutionalised
means. He also says that rebellion is the rejection of prevailing cultural
goals/institutional means and the substitution of new ones.
19
Burke 2009 believed that Cloward and Ohlin’s theory cannot be … because it was very specific
to the gang culture in Chicago during the 1930’s.
Taylor et al 1973 states that not all persons are committed to the goal of attaining wealth and
believes that most people have various goals.
20
Functionalist Approach
Mainstream structural-functionalist thinking on anomie and crime and deviance changed
direction when sociologists moved away from the assumption that all persons and groups in the
society shared similar values and beliefs. By recognising the existence of subcultures, they
realised that values could differ markedly within the population; and that certain subcultures
within socioeconomic groups were more likely to be involved in crime than other groups.
● Edwin Sutherland in White Collar Crime (1949) proposed the Differential Association
theory which showed that groups learned their environment and this was a normal
response in social life. Where deviance was a way of life, as in certain subcultures,
delinquent beliefs, values and outlooks (culture) could be transmitted from one
generation to the next via social learning. In response to strain, persons who lived among
deviants and criminals would most likely learn skills that allowed them to become fully
fledged members of the deviant subculture. Sutherland offered this explanation to the
puzzle of why some persons became deviant and others did not. Critics believed that the
matter was still unresolved because there were persons in delinquent subcultures who did
not become delinquent. He however was one of the first persons to reject the notion that
criminal subcultures were only to be found among the poor and pioneered the study of
white collar crime. Although belonging to the Functionalist perspective, his work
includes aspects of the Interpretive perspective in his use of ethnographic methods and
the emphasis on the processes through which deviance was learnt. Interpretive theorists
took up his ideas later on but gave agency a more central role as Sutherland’s
propositions tended to be prescriptive. The Functionalist nature of his propositions is seen
in the deterministic way in which site or location is seen to influence the individual and
21
that those influences could vary according to a prescribed set of phenomena (frequency
and duration of contact, for example).
● Albert Cohen, in Delinquent Boys (1955) studied delinquent subcultures and addressed
two of the issues that Merton left unresolved – firstly, that some groups did not seem to
be motivated by economic goals. Vandalism is a case in point. Basing his theory on status
frustration, he found that lower-class boys felt looked down upon by the rest of society.
They had little status which caused strain because they felt that they were being assessed
according to middle-class values and standards (language, clothes, academic
achievement, and material wealth) which they could not meet. A consequence of this was
anomie and the development of an alternative system of values (a subculture). This
subculture gave them status among their own peers and in their own community through
competition and delinquent acts that prized aggression and violence. In this way they
earned respect. Much of Cohen’s work was done in schools, studying how delinquency
served as the means not only to attain status in a group but also to hit back at schools,
teachers and the wider society through seemingly senseless acts of violence and
destruction. Secondly, Cohen’s subcultural theory of status frustration also showed how
crime could be committed by a collective – Merton’s strain theory was of a more general
nature.
Critics
● though felt that the theory was not inclusive enough to explain why some lower-class
youth adopted mainstream values even though they could not aspire to all that a
middle-class lifestyle involved.
● Walter Miller agreed with Cohen that there was a delinquent subculture among the lower
classes, but he felt that it arose from the particular norms and values into which they were
socialised. This was quite a reversal from the usual functionalist position that the society
was held together by values consensus. Miller was saying (1958) that the working class
had a different value system altogether from that of the dominant groups in the society
and that delinquency arises out of the nature of the lower class subculture itself.
● Box (1981) indicated that the theory while plausible could only be used to explain a
minority group of offenders. He argues that the onset of the behaviour is not their own
failure to attain goals which they did not necessarily buy into but rather anger and
resentment of educators who regarded them as failures, this results in youths turning
against the system.
● Matzer (1964) disagreed that most youths opposed mainstream norms and values and
suggested instead that most drifted into subcultures from time to time without any
commitment to its values or ways of life.
22
He identified six focal concerns or typical value positions of the working class:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
Smartness – being streetwise and shrewd; also needing to look good (or smart);
Toughness – masculine or macho qualities (womanising, drinking, sports);
Autonomy – resentful of any authority figures (bosses, teachers, the police);
Excitement – fun and enjoyment now as opposed to deferred gratification;
Trouble – violence and aggression are necessary in everyday interactions;
Fate – life is what you get, make the most of it; luck determines life chances.
This mix of concerns, according to Miller, led to a culture that accepts deviance and crime as
normal. This theory went against the grain of previous Functionalist theorising because it did not
see the origins of crime and deviance as structural but as specifically cultural. However, his
contribution is in the Functionalist tradition set in train by Durkheim and Merton because it is
seeking the causes of crime or delinquency as they relate to certain social classes.
Critics
however, point out that many middle class individuals hold some of these focal concerns while
some members of the lower class do not.
Strengths
The strength of this theory is that it fits in well with the people who are decrying the downfall of
the nuclear family and problems of single-parent (especially female) families.
Criticisms
● The primary criticism is that the theory rests heavily on the existence of a distinctive
lower-class culture, which has values distinct from, and in conflict with middle-class
values.
● Another, often overlooked criticism is that it does not really explain criminality. It does
explain (or purport to explain) lower- class culture; but it does not necessarily explain any
delinquency or crime within the theory.
● Finally, there are serious problems in operationalization of the focal concerns. Although
Miller does explain what he means by the focal concerns, he does not say how they may
be accurately measured
● Richard Cloward and Lloyd Ohlin accepted Merton’s basic premise of consensus where
cultural goals were concerned – that groups and individuals were motivated by monetary
reward and this could be achieved through legitimate and illegitimate means. However,
they were critical of Merton who did not give sufficient thought to the processes by
which a person would turn to a life of crime and deviance. The system of social
stratification in societies ensures that to a large extent the opportunity to achieve wealth
23
and high status is blocked from persons of lower social class and those of fewer means.
Cloward and Ohlin maintain that three subcultures may arise as a result of differential
access to illegitimate and legitimate opportunities: criminal, conflict and retreatist.
● In a criminal subculture, a hierarchy of criminal opportunity exists. The criminal
subculture is organised, material goals are important, and adolescents learn criminal
behaviour from adults.- (utilitarian crimes.)
● In contrast, criminal behaviour in the conflict subculture is disorganised, and the social
bonds between adolescents and adults are weak. Furthermore, the material goal of wealth
is rejected by this subculture; instead, status is achieved by negativity and violence.(non-utilitarian crimes.)
● Lastly, in the retreatist subculture, all success goals are abandoned. This subculture is
characterised by members’ use of drugs and alcohol, as a means to ‘retreat’ from the
success goals of society. Someone does not just turn to delinquency because of anomie,
as Merton suggested, but delinquency results from the attractions of an already existing
alternative subculture where the strain of legitimate blocked opportunity structures could
be reduced. In saying this Cloward and Ohlin also critiqued Cohen’s contribution that the
school played a major role in creating juvenile delinquency.
Strengths:
The strength of this theory is in its ability to integrate the best of several theories.
Criticisms;
● It ignores middle- and upper-class crime. Like many others in this perspective, it
addresses only lower-class and group delinquent behaviour.
● It is doubtful that there are only three delinquent subculture gangs. There are different
types and hybrids of these gangs that certainly exist in communities.
● The theory ignores cases of people shifting from one type of gang to another.
Neo-Marxist Approaches
The neo-Marxist field of subcultural studies in crime and deviance sought to correct the Marxist
tendency to ignore the role of individual interaction in social life. While theorists maintained the
traditional Marxist stance that capitalism creates a society with inherent class conflicts and
inequalities, they rejected the close association normally made between being alienated and
oppressed and committing crime. Subcultural approaches tried to avoid the charge of being
overly deterministic and to make a place for individual action and choice in their theories.
24
-
Paul Cohen (1972) studied youth culture in the East End of London in the 1970s and
showed how class struggle was evident in how the youth chose to present themselves.
The ‘deviant’ groups, known as skinheads and mods, actively and deliberately rejected
mainstream capitalist values such as striving for education credentials and seeking a
white collar job. While Cohen saw this as resistance implicit in class struggle, he did not
think it was an automatic or a general response. Some individuals chose which groups
(and there were others) to identify with depending on how attracted they were to the
symbolic means used by that group to represent their tensions at the subordinate class
position they occupied. The mods affected an affluent image, reflecting something of a
mix between their parental values and the lifestyle of a socially mobile, white collar
worker. In a poor community they sought to look different, as if they had ‘prospects’. The
skinheads emphasised their traditional working class roots. Cohen felt that these symbolic
gestures could do little to change the social structure, but participation in these resistance
rituals offered satisfaction to individuals. The mods and the skinheads created a way of
existing that, although temporary, separated them from the hegemony of capitalism.
-
Paul Willis wrote Learning to Labour (1977) which was an ethnographic account of his
stay as a teacher in a comprehensive school in the United Kingdom. This allowed him to
study a group of boys, ‘the lads’, in the classroom and corridors, and after school on the
journey home. Ethnography is usually the tool of the qualitative researcher in the
Interpretive tradition. The work is subtitled How working class kids get working class
jobs and reveals the extent to which these boys understood their limited life chances in
the social system. Schooling for them was an unending round of mischievous and
delinquent acts. Using a Marxist analysis of their subordinate culture, Willis found that
because they so actively celebrated and took on the trappings of their working-class
culture, the capitalist system was preserved. Such studies revealed the potential of
combining a Marxist analysis with Interpretive theory in the study of a small, subcultural
group.
F) Feminist Perspectives
Feminists claim that mainstream theories of crime and deviance have largely addressed males
and as such are limited in explaining crime and deviance among females. According to Smart,
1979, “Our knowledge is still in its infancy, in comparison with the massive documentation on
all aspects of male delinquency and criminality, the amount of work carried out on the area of
women and crime is extremely limited”.
The literature on female deviance are discussed under the following main branches:
Liberal Feminism
25
Liberal feminism focuses on equal rights for women who are denied certain basic rights and
opportunities by virtue of being women. With the advent of the Women’s Liberation Movement
more and more women have entered the workplace. This has blurred the stereotypical gender
differences bringing about a rise in female criminality. Crime is a rational response to lack of
opportunities in education and employment. Liberal feminism tends to focus on why women
commit crime, with theorists suggesting that the greater participation of women in the workforce
and their rejection of traditional patriarchy have led to a higher incidence of criminal activity.
A major criticism of the liberal feminist perspective is that it primarily focuses “on the interests
of white, middle-class, heterosexual women.”. This results in equating justice with equality and
not considering other influential standpoints, such as; race/ethnicity and social class.
Radical Feminism
Radical feminism focuses on women as victims. They argue that violence against women cannot
just be seen in a similar way to violence experienced by men. The context of patriarchy is built
into the structure of society and the violence against women tends to be ‘normalised’ by the
justice system, the family and the media. But to a large extent the violence faced by women is
rooted in patriarchy, i.e. a system of oppression, and not just in an incident where violence
occurs.
Criticisms:
● Wilkinson criticises Feminists by arguing that it is not so much Patriarchy, but poverty
that causes stress which leads to domestic violence, so this is much less common in more
equal, middle class households.
● Men are also victims of domestic violence with some statistics suggesting that men are
the victims in as many as 2/5 cases of domestic violence.
Socialist Feminism
Socialist feminism focuses on capitalism which is dominated by men and the prevailing gender
system of patriarchy which directs women into lower-paying jobs with fewer economic
resources. This in turn leads to deviance and crime. This perspective combines ideas from both
Marxist and Radical feminism, to the effect that women are exploited by both capitalism and
patriarchy. Messerschmidt (2002) studied how masculinities in different social class categories
lead to criminality. Both gender and class are seen as equally important in explaining criminality.
He explores how class affects gender and vice versa in explaining criminality among males.
Messerschmidt is seen as a feminist as his work is aimed at eliminating all forms of gender
inequality.
26
27
CONTENT 3 - Issues related to Crime & Deviance (Shania S & Feisha)
(a) Drug use and trafficking.
(b) Juvenile delinquency.
(c) Domestic violence.
(d) Corporate Crime.
a) Drug Abuse and Trafficking
What is a drug?
A drug is any chemical that produces a therapeutic or non-therapeutic effect in the body. This
definition suggests that there are drugs that are used for medicinal or therapeutic purposes - such
as antibiotics, which are used to cure the body of illness. Sociologists are more concerned with
those drugs that are used for non-medicinal or non-therapeutic purposes, for example
recreationally. When individuals use these drugs they experience changes in their emotions,
perceptions and moods. The objective is to get 'a high'. Among those drugs that interest
sociologists are alcohol, cocaine, crack-cocaine, heroin, marijuana, morphine and substances
such as LSD.
28
Sociological explanations of drug use:
➔ Hirschi's social control theory
Hirschi's (1969) social control theory offers a possible explanation for why some individuals
engage in deviant activities such as drug abuse. Hirschi implied in his argument that those people
who have failed to develop strong bonds with conventional people are susceptible to deviant
behaviour because there are no ‘containers' (people to answer to) in their lives. Therefore, it is
reasonable to assume that, if people are conventionally involved in the institutions of society (for
example, a husband and wife living together with their children or a student who has plans for
higher education), they are less likely to violate society's norms because of the contaminants in
their lives. As such, illegal drug use (and other acts of deviance) will not normally occur
(Goode1971).
Functionalism's explanation
Just as Hirschi focused on the importance of strong social-control mechanisms as a major
deterrent to deviant behaviour, functionalists examine the issue of weak self-control. From the
functionalist perspective, weak self-control is a product of inadequate parenting, where children
grow up in households in which they are not properly monitored and controlled by their parents
and those who have authority over them. This could lead to these children engaging in careless,
reckless, impulsive, inconsiderate and self-centred behaviours. Hence, they may become liars,
cheats, thieves and deviants. Involvement in drug abuse and other deviant acts is seen as
inevitable in these circumstances.
Sutherland's social learning theory
Edwin Sutherland's theory of differential association (1939) suggested that some individuals are
exposed to some learning environments where certain kinds of behaviour are encouraged. In
these environments it is possible that they may be exposed to people who use drugs or Say
favourable things about drug use (for example, sharing stories of pleasurable experiences with
drugs). In the Caribbean, there are many such learning environments where young men especially those who form bonds with unconventional people' and those who have been victims
of inadequate parenting - gather at street corners and in inner-city communities and become
willing ‘'students' in the use of drugs. Over time, they acquire the skills of using drugs and the
strategies to avoid detection by their parents, teachers and employers.
Conflict theory
The conflict perspective focuses on the social and economic conditions in which the members of
the working class live. Its proponents claim that a high proportion of the working class live in
inner city communities that are characterised by high levels of unemployment and poverty, a lack
29
of social amenities and weak social control mechanisms. Over time, the residents of those
communities develop feelings of hopelessness, depression and frustration as they struggle to
survive in less than acceptable living conditions. Such socially disorganised environments
generally become breeding grounds for all kinds of legal activities, as some of their members
resort to crimes such as drug dealing to earn a living and also use drugs to deal with their
frustrations. Drug dealing and drug use also become catalysts for a wide range of criminal
activities such as stealing, trading in stolen goods, gang warfare, murders and other violent
crimes.
Issues of drug trafficking in the Caribbean
In March 2013, in an article entitled The Caribbean and the Cartels; the Trinidad Express
explained that Trinidad and Tobago's many "crime waves" are linked to the country’s location in
the belly of the international drug trade. The article also asserted that drug trafficking is
associated with the rise of gangland activities and that these gangs have become global players in
the illicit drug trade. There are now indications of organised crime in the Caribbean region, In
addition, other illegal activities have become part of the Caribbean reality as the area is now
faced with human trafficking, small-arms trafficking, identity theft, lottery scams and the
smuggling of counterfeit goods.
b) Juvenile Delinquency
This refers to crime committed by minors. It is evident the juvenile offenders tend to commit
more serious crimes within two years of their release from juvenile centres. The U.K. has a
70-80% average and Barbados, a 38% average where this is concerned. The record shows that
institutionalisation does not act as a deterrent since reoffending rates remain high for those who
receive custodial sentences. There has to be a review of the custodial sentence policies, as
custodial punishment disrupts the juvenile’s attachment to his family, community and education.
When the juvenile is deprived of a good education this leads to fewer chances of him getting a
job and increases the risk of him turning to crime. Furthermore, it costs a lot to keep these
juveniles in institutions. Barbados suffers a lot from juvenile crimes as the rest of the Caribbean.
It is obvious that Caribbean governments need to put in place programmes that will address the
issue of poverty alleviation, education and unemployment. The family has a major role to play in
helping with the rehabilitation of these juveniles. Professional counselling is also necessary.
c) Domestic Violence
This refers to violent crime committed against family members and other persons who are close
to or known by the perpetrators. These offences include physical, emotional and child abuse.
Domestic violence is a major social problem affecting Caribbean society. It is responsible for a
30
high spate of murder, wounding and rape. It is more prevalent in the depressed inner city
communities.
The offenders are difficult to be prosecuted as they either bribe or threaten the victims from even
reporting the offences.
Domestic violence and child abuse can be considered from the perspective of the family as a
social institution
(56.5.2), but here we will focus on domestic violence as an issue related to deviance and crime
and the criminal justice system.
In the first three weeks of 2012 alone, St Vincent, a country with a population of roughly
120,000, tragically lost three women to domestic violence. St Vincent was documented as having
the third-highest rate of reported rapes in the world (see Box 11.5).
● All of the Caribbean islands have higher rates of sexual violence than the world average.
● In the Bahamas police reported that 6 out of 54 killings recorded from January to
September 2008 were related to domestic violence (UNDFM & DevNet, 2008).
● In St Lucia for the first six months of 2008, police reported 39 cases of rape and 60 cases
of statutory rape and the DPP's office received 15 sexual assault cases from police
investigators. (UNDFM & DevNet, 2008).
● A survey reported by UNDP (2012) stated that across the Caribbean, Jamaica recorded
the lowest incidence of domestic violence (6%) and Guyana, the highest (17%).
In trying to curb the problem of domestic violence, Caribbean countries are hampered by
outdated laws.
In Barbados, for example, according to the chairperson of the SAVE Foundation, the Domestic
Violence
(Protection Orders) Act has not been updated since 1992 (11 October 2012). Moreover, the act
did not define domestic violence as a crime and an offender could only be charged if s/he had
violated a protection order or was liable under the Sexual Offences Act. To a large extent the
laws cater to those who are married and fail to consider those who are in visiting or common-law
unions. Fairly widespread across the Caribbean is the fact that those in authority - the police, the
law courts and politicians - treat the matter of domestic violence lightly.
White Collar Crimes
Edwin Sutherland defines white collar crime as crime committed by persons of high social status
and respectability in the course of their occupation. White collar crime includes bribery,
corruption, fraud etc.
31
Features of White Collar Crime
● It involves complex, sophisticated and technical actions at the workplace
● The money involved is usually large
● It intermingles with legitimate behaviour
Advantages of White Collar Crime Over Street Crime
● Money can be stolen without the culprit putting his/her hand on it
● The police finds it much harder to prosecute persons of white collar crime
● The offenders of white collar crime rarely receive a prison sentence
● White Collar Crime does not attract detailed media coverage as street crime does.
● White collar crime does not bear the stigma that is associated with street crime.
Corporate Crime
Corporate crime is similar in offence to white collar crime, only that it is the responsibility of an
organisation instead of an individual. Corporate crimes include tax evasions, corporate fraud,
price fixing, misrepresentation in advertising, bread of trade regulation etc.
CONTENT 4 - Effects of Crime & Deviance (Tyra & Samantha)
(a) Economic: cost of security, budget allocation, money laundering.
(b) Social: migration, well-being, quality of life.
(c) Political: legislation, regional response.
a) Economic effects
- to be effective in ‘fighting crime’, governments must allocate a considerable portion of
their revenues for:
● The increased costs of security: re-training of the police service in forensics, the use of
ICTs in crime detection; purchase and maintenance of coastal patrol vessels, helicopters
for aerial patrols, and a fleet of cars, security vans and motorbikes for city patrols;
● Increased health and medical expenses associated with treating victims of crime on a
daily basis;
● Costs associated with maintaining an efficient justice system in the face of a higher
number of offenders- the need for more police, court personnel and more prisons; and
many police stations and courthouses are in need of refurbishing or rebuilding
32
Other direct and indirect economic costs associated with crime and deviance in the society
include:
● Loss of confidence in the state to provide security which induces foregin direct investors
to reduce their interests and as a results economic growth slows down;
● Businesses and ordinary citizens have to invest in high security measures;
Shrinking of the labour market, declining productivity and unemployment if investments
decrease;
● Reduced worker productivity on the part of drug abusers and victims of domestic
violence, among whom there is a high rate of work and school absenteeism;
●
● A high incidence of violence in stigmatised communities where consequently few
opportunities are available; such communities become economically depressed and the
police have to increase patrols and raids;
● Increased poverty so that the government and other agencies have to donate food and
other supplies;
● Increased poverty so that the government and other agencies have to donate food and
other supplies;
● Closure of businesses in high-crime areas, which is especially difficult fro small,
owner-run concerns; this reduces the levels of entrepreneurship and job creation in the
economy;
● Mounting security costs for large and small businesses, but for the latter the price of
alarm systems, fencing and guards is prohibitive. In addition, firms have to close before
dark in high crime areas potentially losing business;
● Lack of investment in businesses to expand their operations because of the highly
uncertain climate;
● Businesses in high crime areas being forced to make ‘protection payments’ to gangs so
that they can stay open for business; refusal to do so could result in damage to their
buildings or personal injury;
33
● The relatively ‘crime-free’ solution sought by the tourist industry in the all-inclusive
package holiday. The economic backlash is that there are few backward linkages to
benefit nationals engaged in small trades, entertainment, food, guiding and sightseeing
services
It is estimated that crime costs Caribbean countries between 2.8% and 4.0% of GDP on an
annual basis (UNDP 2012). Caribbean people are deeply affected by this drain of resources:
The funds routed to fighting crime are usually drawn from the development fund which therefore
cheats taxpayers of projects that would have afforded them a better standard of living
The cost of security measures taken by firms and private citizens are passed on to consumers
who now have to pay higher sums for the same goods and services.
Money laundering
One of the economic costs associated with crime and deviance in the Caribbean has to do with
the impact of money laundering on the society. Individuals may set up businesses purely to have
a legitimate outlet for funds derived illegally. Such enterprises do not operate according to
conventional business practice, e.g. the law of supply and demand, so they can adversely affect
the sales of legitimate businesses.
Thus crime and deviance are proving very expensive to Caribbean countries. Drug-trafficking
and money laundering encourage high levels of corruption. Under such conditions the rule of law
is weak. The ultimate effect of such entrenched practices is that the country’s development is
jeopardised.
Social effects
The increase in levels of crime and violence in the Caribbean goes far beyond economic costs
and negatively affects ordinary citizens, which in due course, also negatively impacts the nation
as a whole.
Migration
Workers, particularly educated workers, are leaving the Caribbean largely because of rising
insecurity. The Caribbean has always had a culture of migration fuelled by poor economic
circumstances. Today however many young people of better economic standing see one of the
major reasons to leave the region as the rise in crime where youth are, in the main, offenders and
victims. The economic as well as the social effects of this brain drain are far reaching as small
states cannot afford to lose the professional class who were educated at great cost to the state.
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According to the World Bank, the seven countries with the highest emigration rates for college
graduates in the world are in the Caribbean. Guyana is the world leader (Brown, 2010)
Well Being and Quality of Life
Planners adopting the development approach known as human development are moving away
from high income as a perquisite for human development. Mahub ul Haq and the proponents of
human development at the United Nations state that it is not so much a country’s income that
determines its level of human development but how that income is used. The key condition is
that citizens should enjoy a life free from insecurity. Freedom from fear is the foundation on
which a country can build institutions to enable citizens to enjoy well-being and an advanced
quality of life. Unfortunately, the present rates of crime, violence, and domestic abuse mean that
in the Caribbean citizens live daily with high levels of insecurity.
● Those who are victims of violent crime, many of them women, suffer physical and
psychological trauma and there are few sources of support in the society.
● Many people plan their day and activities around the spectre of crime. They do not go
into certain areas and live with a self-imposed curfew. This limits what people can be and
do.
● The poor suffer more than the rich from crime because they cannot afford expensive
protective measures and they tend to live in the high-crime communities themselves.
Hence, they battle with poverty and violence daily. Attendance at school may be irregular
and daily-paid workers have to forego earnings when they deem it too dangerous to leave
their homes.
● What compounds the situation is that it is evident to citizens that the police and the
judicial system cannot contain the ‘crime wave’. Corruption at all levels prohibits
Caribbean governments from providing the kind of security that citizens want. This
breeds not only fear but a sense of hopelessness and high levels of public dissatisfaction.
Political Effects
It is apparent that the measures put in place by Caribbean governments to curb crime have been
largely ineffective. Popular sentiment in Trinidad & Tobago sees the financiers of the drug trade
as coming from the ranks of the elites who, through the influence of corruption, have protected
their operation using a network of party, police and customs officials. As a result the police
service cannot do much to address crime. In such a case, the political authorities need to have the
fortitude to bring their peers to justice. To date this has not happened.
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Legislation
When citizens feel that ‘crime is out of control’ they seek legislation that is extremely harsh on
offenders. Punishment as retribution takes centre stage over punishment as rehabilitation. Laws
are passed giving more power to the police and armed forces.
State of emergency
● Some countries such as Trinidad & Tobago and Jamaica may go so far as to declare a
limited state of emergency in certain urban areas or crime ‘hotspots’. A state of
emergency gives wide-ranging powers to the police and the military of search, seizure
and arrest. Citizens may be taken from their homes and incarcerated for long periods
without trial. The constitution in both countries allows for the possibility of the
breakdown of law and extreme measures are taken to reinstate peace in society.
● As the crackdown on criminals intensifies, ordinary citizens are in danger of losing their
rights. It is the poor, especially those from stigmatised communities, whose freedoms are
most affected. In Jamaica, areas in West Kingston have been repeatedly ‘locked down’ by
curfews and residents have had to stay indoors, or risk being shot by the police.
Indiscriminate police killings and police brutality have been reported during these times
in these areas. Direct intervention on the part of rival political parties was responsible for
arming neighbouring areas in West Kingston in the 1970s and 1980s. Loyalty to a
particular party in a particular area became a matter of life and death. Thus, in both
Jamaica and Trinidad & Tobago political will is needed to curb the present violence.
Civil rights
● Legislation that reduces the rights of citizens impacts on political development. For
example, in countries where ethnic divisions or class differences are pronounced, there is
the very real risk that certain groups may be labelled ‘the problem’ and made scapegoats.
Inclusion in the political development process would be retarded if their rights and
freedoms were restricted. Giving the authorities the mandate to fight crime with
draconian legislation in effect takes away our rights as citizens. Thinking that a trade-off
is necessary to fight crime and that what has to be sacrificed is our rights and freedoms
shows the influence of fear.
● Rather, Caribbean people need to find ways to demonstrate to their governments that
corruption in high places and political involvement in gangs must stop. In this way
political development could be boosted in the region.
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Regional Response
Since 2001 the Caribbean Community (Caricom) has improved its response to the upsurge in
crime in member nations by entering into several multilateral cooperative agreements designed
to improve security in the region. It is obvious that the separate national governments cannot
effectively impact the regional and international transit of illegal drugs and firearms which are at
the root of the crime problems they experience within their own borders. Caricom therefore has
sought to fill this breach.
While steady inroads are being made by Caribbean governments, in partnerships with
international authorities, in capturing illegal shipments of drugs and arms and arresting drugs and
arms traffickers, there is still much to be done. To a large extent maritime shipping and port
security are key areas that continue to be weak throughout the region. On the whole customs
officers and patrols cannot keep up with the variety of initiatives used by smugglers to bypass
security measures and the standards of search and surveillance vary across the Caribbean.
The efforts of Caricom are stymied by:
● the lack of modern technologies throughout the Caribbean; the criminal networks seem to
have superior resources;
● the unwillingness of Caribbean states to enter into greater collaboration with each other,
beyond rhetoric;
● the fact that the Caribbean is largely a transit point for drugs and arms and therefore more
international involvement is necessary in the region;
● the apparent lack of political will on the part of national governments to stamp out
corruption which neutralises any gains made by crime-fighting agencies;
● the unwillingness of national governments to seek to address, as an urgent development
issue, the social gaps and inequalities faced by their citizens.
Caricom depends on member states to implement the directives of the task force and multilateral
agencies listed above. All states do not have equal resources and the nature of the crime
problems differs from state to state. However, ineffectual controls in one country weaken the
security of the entire region. This is also true of countries where the justice system is inadequate
and conviction rates are low. If the major countries cannot do a good job of containing crime
within their own borders then the criminal elements will flourish and spill over into other
countries in the region. The crux of the problem seems to lie in the lack of political will on the
part of Caribbean governments to address corruption in government agencies that are also
entrusted with fighting crime.
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CONTENT 5 - Effectiveness of institutions of social control (Kareena & Shania)
(a) Family.
(b) Education.
(c) Religion.
(d) Media.
(e) Political system.
(f) Legal system.
Family
● The family is the primary agent of socialisation, as it is here that the child first learns the
rules of society. A stable family would result in the norms and values of society being
adhered to more readily since it provides a stable environment for the socialisation of
children.
● The family assists in transmitting the norms and values of society to its members. It aids
in developing the conscience of individuals.
● Each individual is carefully taught by his/her parents and others to understand and obey
rules. People have been instilled with a conscience that makes them feel guilty whenever
rules are violated.
● Most deviance occurs among those in their late teens and twenties, people with fewer
attachments. The family provides the bonding and attachment to allow individuals to
have the support that prevents them from deviating from societal norms.
Education
● Education provides a custodial function for children and thereby serves as an agent of
social control.
● One of the first socialisation tasks of the school is to teach children that they will be
evaluated on the basis of achievement; in this way, students can share in this basic
consensus. Only then, one can ensure that the classroom itself will be stable and well
integrated.
● The process of education helps to provide an important link between the individual and
society. Accordingly to Durkheim, education is ‘the methodical socialisation of the young
generation’. In order for society to survive, there must be social solidarity. Education
achieves this by instilling the values of society into the young.
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● Education rewards conformity and punishes deviance; this helps to strengthen the norms
and values of society.
● The education system also helps in creating a skilled labour force by reacting to the
economic needs of society. As societies become more complex and modernised,
education prepares individuals to undertake specialised occupations and to learn modern
values.
● In an effort to keep young people in school, emphasis is placed on extracurricular
activities. In this way, students develop attachments to people in the various activities and
to the institution itself. The more of these activities, and the more attachments, the less
likely the student is to drop out.
● When the young person has little in the way of activities or reputation to risk, he or she
may become more adventurous; this may include actions that are illegal or deviant.
Religion
● Essentially, believers understand that obedience to religious rules, and conformity to
norms, lead to various types of religious rewards in this life, and even after death. The
burdens of relative deprivation, disappointed desires, and death can be offset by
long-term benefits. Most faiths teach the value of sacrifice and suffering for the good of
others and society.
● Religion draws people together; there is a collective conscience, in that people share
common beliefs. This increases the sense of community.
● Religion is necessary because it gives rules of conduct that prescribe how people should
carry themselves in society.
● Religion may motivate people to appreciate life better, and become more conscientious.
Media
● It is important to study the relationship between media and crime in sociology because
the audience builds its perception of crime based on the media’s representations.
● Labelling theory is applicable to mainstream media’s representation of certain groups.
Interactionists believe that the media’s portrayal of the deviance of youth subcultures is
often exaggerated, which creates a ‘moral panic’ among the masses. This results in
restraining or stopping the activities of these subcultures, and that triggers them to
respond with more deviant behaviour.
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● The fact that the public responds by showing anxiety about ‘youth crime’ suggests that
they subscribe to the media representation of young people as a threat to society/social
order.
●
The media tends to highlight the psychological state of criminals in its coverage rather
than the social context which causes the crime. For example, crime stories mostly quote
the police, the victim(s), and their families, instead of quoting the experts in the field for
'newsworthiness'.
●
Media coverage generally lacks objectivity, e.g. analysing actual risks associated with the
crime. Instead, it makes the audience ‘emotional’ or ‘angry’ by overexposing the victims
of the crime story featured. Consequently, unrealistic fear of crime gets spread through
media coverage.
●
The media tends to focus on harsher punishments for criminals and negates discussion on
alternative methods of punishment, even though evidence suggests that harsher
punishments are not always necessarily the most effective means to control crime.
● Newson (1994) suggested that the effects of media violence on children are more subtle
and happen gradually. She argued that continued exposure to violent media - through
films, series, etc. - for several years desensitises children to violence, so they don’t get
shocked by it but rather see it as the norm, or as a way of solving problems.
Legal and Political
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Rewards and Punishments
1. Rewards - psychologists who study learning tell us that rewards are more effective than
punishments in modifying behaviour. Rewards usually result in generating positive feelings,
rather than hostility and anger, towards the people who administer them.
2. Punishments - punishments are less effective than rewards, but they can also modify
behaviour. However, especially with adults, they often result in hostility and anger towards the
officials, institutions, and society that administer them, and this may lead to attitudes that bring
about further deviant behaviour.
Punishment has three dimensions:
➢ Certainty
The first attribute of punishment is how likely it is for punishment to be received with each
deviant act. The more certain, the better, and punishments need not be harsh if they are certain.
➢ Severity
The weakest form of control is severe punishment. Yet this often seems to be the response of
society to deviant behaviour. A higher sentence may be passed for some forms of deviance, and
this is viewed as ‘being strong on the crime issue.’ This approach has been notoriously
ineffective and costly in trying to control drug trafficking. Prison sentences for drug sales have
increased tremendously, yet the likelihood of being caught is fairly low. Even when people are
caught and put in prison, others always seem ready to take their place on the street corner to
continue to sell drugs, because internal controls are absent.
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