Sociological perspectives: crime and deviance
Functionalism: Crime is inevitable – Durkheim, a functionalist, said that
crime is inevitable in society. This is because not everyone will buy into
the collective sentiments of society, and will deviate from these norms
and beliefs.
Durkheim said a certain amount of crime and deviance as normal and an
integral part of all healthy societies. This is because it acts as a ‘safety
valve’, providing a relatively harmless way for someone to express their
discontent. For example, Cohen said that “prostitution performs such a
safety valve function without threatening the institution of the family”,
this is because he believed this crime of prostitution could relieve the
stress in a discrete way without damaging the rest of the clients life.
Clinard said crime also served the function of acting as a warning device.
This is because the crime indicates that there is an aspect of society that is
malfunctioning. So the crime draws attention to the problem within
society, which can then be fixed.
Durkheim said that crime in society isn’t genetically produced, but is
natural in society. However, he did say that too much crime was
dangerous in a society, and this is an idea Merton developed.
Merton and Anomie
Merton observed American culture. He said that this society bought into
the ‘American dream’ of having a successful career with lots of money,
material possessions and a nice family.
Merton said that in a balanced society everyone will be happy, however,
he said American society isn’t balanced, so when people struggle to live
up to societies norms and values they try and find other ways of
achieving this success, and act normlessly. Merton called this a strain to
anomie, and it is this normless behaviour which he said caused crime in
society. Consider it like someone losing in a card game, and the
expectation for them to win is so high that they break the rules in order to
do so.
Merton said there are five ways in which members of American society
could respond to this strain to anomie:
1. Conformity – Members of society conform to the norms of the rest of
society (in this case the need for material goods) and try to achieve
success through the normal means (work hard at school etc.)
2. Innovation – People who feel that they cannot possibly achieve
through the normal route try new ways of making money, in most cases
this is a life of crime
3. Ritualism – People who feel they can’t achieve because they have few
job prospects, but also can’t turn to innovation might lower their goals
and aspirations. This is considered deviant because they have rejected
society’s norms and values by creating their own lower goals.
4. Retreatism – People who cannot possibly earn success and feel there is
no way to do so might retreat from society, or ‘drop out’. They resign to
failure and often turn to alcohol or drugs abuse.
5. Rebellion – People who cannot succeed but do not want to just admit
defeat might rebel and try to create their own society with new goals and
means.
To summarise, Merton believed the pressure exerted on people to
succeed, a strain to anomie, meant that if they didn’t they would act
normlessly to cope, and this could manifest itself in any of the 5 ways
shown above.
Evaluation of Merton
- Some critics argue that actually society might not have a value
consensus, so how can people feel pressured by it if the value consensus
doesn’t exist.
- Also people say that Merton exaggerates working class crime and
ignores white-collar crime committed by the wealthy in society.
- ­The biggest criticism of Merton’s work is that it doesn’t explain why
people commit crimes that can’t be explained by a strain to anomie. For
example freedom fighters who act criminally because of commitment
rather than the effects of anomie.
+ However, evidence shows that after communist countries moved to free
market economies (which stress the importance of individual material
success) crime rates have rocketed. Similarly, as the UK moved to
Thatcherism (which again places more value on material success and hard
work) crime rates increased. This suggests that the strain to achieve what
society considers ‘success’ can lead to crime, so it supports Merton’s
view.
Subcultural theories: Subcultural theories build upon the work of Merton.
They say that deviance is the result of individuals conforming to the
values and norms of a social group to which they belong, if you belong to
a social group whose norms differ from those of the main society then
you will become a deviant.
Cohen said lower-working-class boys want to achieve the success which
is valued by mainstream culture. But due to educational failure and the
dead-end jobs that result from this they have little chance of achieving
these goals. This results in status frustration, the boys are at the bottom of
the social structure and have little chance of gaining a higher status in
society. This is similar to Merton’s theory, however Cohen said that
instead of turning to crime as Merton said, they reject the norms and
values of mainstream society and instead turn to the norms and values of
a delinquent subculture. In this subculture the boys can achieve success
because the social group has different norms and values from the rest of
society. So in this culture a high value is placed upon criminal acts such
as stealing and vandalism which are condemned by mainstream society.
In these subcultures the individual who lacked respect in mainstream
society can gain it by committing crimes such as vandalism and truancy.
Because the crimes reward the individual with respect there is not always
the need for a monetary value to commit a crime, so the subcultural
perspective explains why people commit non-utilitarian crimes.
Cloward and Ohlin developed Cohen’s theory. They said that there are
three different types of subcultures that young people might enter into;
criminal subcultures, conflict subcultures and retreatist subcultures.
Criminal subcultures tend to emerge in areas where there is a lot of
organised adult crime, here there are criminal role models for young
people, and they learn how to commit criminal acts. In these subcultures
the young people can climb up the professional criminal ladder by
committing more crimes. These subcultures are normally concerned with
utilitarian crimes, which yield financial reward.
Conflict subcultures tend to emerge in areas where there is little
organised adult crime, so instead of learning how to commit serious
monetary crimes the young people instead focus on gaining respect
through gang violence.
Retreatist subcultures are for young people who have even failed in the
criminal subcultures, these people are ‘double failures’. They tend to
retreat to drugs and alcohol abuse to deal with the fact that they have been
rejected from other subcultures.
Walter B. Miller said that a deviant subculture doesn’t arise from the
inability of the members to achieve success; instead he said that crime is
a result of the fact that there is a lower-class subculture with different
norms and values to the rest of society. He said these different values
mean that for members of this culture there are a number of concerns and
things people want to achieve, he called these focal concerns and they
include:
Toughness – Miller said that people within the lower-class subculture
value toughness as an important trait; however this can manifest itself in
assault and violence.
Smartness – This culture also value the ability to outfox each other. This
will often lead to people trying to con, pickpocket or steal from each
other in ‘clever’ ways.
Excitement – This culture constantly searches for excitement and thrills.
This often means gambling, alcohol and sexual adventures.
Miller said this mix of ‘focal concerns’ can lead to a culture which
accepts crime and deviance as normal.
David Matza said that delinquents aren’t actually in opposition to
society’s norms and values. He said that society has a strong moral hold
on them and this prevents them from engaging in delinquent activities for
most of the time, he said that the fact that these people often show
remorse for their actions later in life support this view. Instead he said
these young delinquents are involved in crime only occasionally as parttime law breakers.
Matza said that delinquents convince themselves they are not breaking
the law, and this allows them to commit crimes whilst still accepting
society’s norms and values. However, Matza said that within mainstream
societies values there are ‘subterranean values’ which promote the ideas
of acting in the spur of the moment for excitement and thrills. Although
the subterranean values are within mainstream societies set of values,
they could encourage behaviour which breaks the law and are then seen
by mainstream society as criminal or deviant.
Through this theory of ‘delinquency drift’ Matza explains how he thinks
young people within a subculture can break the values of society without
really recognising that they are doing so, and then later in life drift back
into mainstream society as these subterranean values become less
important to the individual.
Marxism: Marxists say crime can only be understood in terms of
capitalism and the class struggle. Not only is the justice system unfair on
the working-class it also benefits the ruling class.
Who makes the law and who benefits?
The first question Marxists asks is, who makes the laws and who
benefits? They say laws are made by the state, representing the interests
of the ruling class. For example Chambliss (1976) said that laws in regard
to property were first set up to ensure the ruling class’ wealth remained in
the family, and if any of the working class tried to stop this they were
classed as breaking the law. This is because the property and land were
the main source of wealth for the ruling class, so it was important this
was protected. Chambliss then goes on to identify as our economy
changed to a capitalist model, the laws also changed and again are
enforced to protect the ruling class.
Marxists go on to say that any laws which are made to protect the
working class, for example anti-monopolistic laws, are only done so to
appease the working class so they don’t figure out the injustice in the
criminal system.
Chambliss also pointed out that the laws that aren’t passed are as
important as the ones that are. He said that the ruling-class have the
power to ensure that no laws are passed that could damage the position
and power of the ruling class.
Who breaks the law?
Most sociological perspectives agree that there is crime across all social
strata; the richest and the poorest all commit crimes. However, Marxists
say that the crimes by the ruling class not only go unpunished but also
cause many more problems that the street crimes by the working-class.
For example, 20,000 are murdered every year in the US, whilst 100,000
are killed by cancer due to unsafe working conditions imposed on the
working-class by the ruling class. This crime is neither recognised as
important nor punished, yet it causes many more problems than the
crimes of the working class.
Many Marxist sociologists have noted the large number of laws dealing
with property in capitalist society. Hermann Mannheim wrote: ‘the
history of criminal legislation in England and many other countries,
shows that excessive prominence was given by the law to the protection
of property.’
Capitalism saw the increasing importance of trade and commerce (which
involved movable property). This resulted in a vast number of laws
protecting the property and interests of the emerging capitalist class.
Marxists and neo-Marxists argue that crime is widespread in all social
strata. Self- report studies support this. Snider (1993) argues ‘many of the
most serious anti-social and predatory acts committed in modern
industrial countries are corporate crimes.’ Snider also claims corporate
crime does more harm than the ‘street crimes’, such as burglary, robbery
and murder, which are usually seen as the most serious types of crime.
The corporate crime Snider referred to included examples such as the
poisoning of thousands of Indians at Bhopal, the Zeebruge ferry disaster
and the Hatfield train crash. Subsequent enquiries stated that all the
companies involved had put profit before safety. In the UK the crime of
‘corporate manslaughter’ was introduced to cover such events with
boards of directors being put in the firing line if similar tragedies occur
again.
Criticisms
Feminists – Marxism places undue emphasis on class inequality, ignoring
the role of patriarchy in shaping how the criminal justice system operates.
Marxists overestimate the extent to which “capitalism causes crime”.
Marxists assume that in a communist utopia, crime would be eradicated,
but historically, this has not been the case. Before the fall of communism
in the Soviet Union, crime was plentiful and had not been eradicated by
the abolition of class conflict.
Jones – disputes that capitalism always causes crime – points to
Switzerland, which has long embraced the capitalist system yet as a low
crime rate (although on a methodological level, this could be down do hw
crimes are reported and recorded differently).
Marxists have an over simplistic view of crime. Although there are
clearly some people with more power than others, this does not mean that
they can pass any law that benefits them. E.g. “insider trading” = highly
lucrative for the RC, but is a criminal offence that is punishable by prison
term.
“Left realists” claim Marxism places undue emphasis of corporate crime,
arguing that robbery, burglary and other violent crimes cause more harm
than Marxists recognise. The victims of these crimes are usually WC, and
the consequences can be devastating for them. Thus, left realists criticise
Marxists for giving a one -sided picture of crime which does little to deal
with the crimes that the majority of society face.
Postmodernists reject Marxist criminology as a “metanarrative” that is
neither believable nor defensible.
Neo-Marxism: In their publication The New Criminology the neoMarxists Taylor, Walton and Young said that they agreed with Marxism
on three key issues in relation to crime.
1. They agree that the economy is the most important part of society, and
it is from this that crime is born.
2. They believe that the capitalism is to blame for crime as it causes an
inequality in society which is the root of crime
3. They agree that if we are to eradicate crime we must first see a
transformation of society away from capitalism.
However, in many ways Taylor, Walton and Young’s views differ from
conventional Marxist approaches, hence why it is the neo-Marxist
perspective.
One way in which it differs from Marxism is that it believes the labelling
theory proposed by Interactionists has some truth in it. Neo-Marxists say
that the ruling class label certain members of the working class in order to
gain benefits themselves, this is called a “fully social theory of deviance”.
The work of neo-Marxists in the area of labelling was epitomised by
Stuart Hall’s ‘Policing the crisis’ whereby he looked at moral panic over
‘mugging’ in the 1970′s in Britain. During the 1970′s several newspapers
repeatedly reported incidents of mugging; Hall said this moral panic was
built upon the idea of collective fear of ‘an enemy within’. He said this
was because in the 1970′s Britain experienced an economic decline – a
‘crisis of capitalism’ – and the government needed someone for everyone
to blame and rally against, uniting the people and allowing us to forget
about the economic issues. By making the Black mugger someone to fear,
it solidified a fractured UK society around the state. Neo-Marxists say
that this is just one of many examples of how social background (in this
instance you’re ethnicity and class) can result in you being deviant, but it
is only because of the labelling from the ruling class that you become a
deviant.
So neo-Marxists say the ruling-class used labelling of certain people to
sustain their control over the working class; in this case it was used to
solve a “crisis of capitalism”.
Evaluation
The New Criminology has been criticized in a number of ways. Feminists
have criticised its concentration on male crimes.
Some new left realist criminologists have accused it of neglecting the
impact of crime on victims and romanticizing working-class criminals.
In 1998, Paul Walton and Jock Young re-evaluated their earlier work.
They accept some of the criticisms but argue that recent approaches such
as ‘realist criminology, feminist criminology and postmodern
criminology are all committed to creating a more equitable and just
society’. In this respect they are each continuing the tradition of New
Criminology.
Interactionism: Interactionists disagree with functionalist on both the idea
that society has a consensus about what crime is and the idea that crime is
caused by “external forces”. Instead Blumer said everybody commits
crimes and deviance, it is more important to look at the way society reacts
to this behaviour.
Howard Becker said that society creates rules, and by doing this anyone
who acts outside of these rules is a deviant. Therefore the act itself isn’t
deviant, it is how we label that act that makes it deviant. Interactionists
would point out how in one context, an act is considered deviant, in
another it is normal – it is only when it is done in a way that is not
publicly defined as proper that it becomes deviant. For example, killing is
not always deviant or criminal, during war it is more deviant to refuse to
kill.
Interactionists say this labelling can lead to groups being victimized for
crime. For example, the police might label black youths as more likely to
be a criminal. So people of this group are more likely to be charged with
a criminal offence. Furthermore, Interactionists say this labelling can
mean a person is singled out as deviant; this could result in the selffulfilling prophecy of this person becoming the deviant they were labelled
as.
Interactionists say that this targeting of certain groups by agents of social
control can actually lead to a deviancy amplification spiral. This means
that the public take sympathy with the way certain groups are treated, for
example over-the-top media hatred, and this causes some of the public to
join this victimized group of deviants. An example of this could be that
after disturbances by mods and rockers in Clacton in 1984 led to heavyhanded treatment from the police, and this then led to more young people
joining the mods and rockers out of hatred for the police.
Evaluation
+ The Interactionist approach draws attention to the importance of
labelling and societal reaction
+ It has also highlighted the fact that we have perceptions of a typical
criminal; for example, the image the tabloids project of criminals
- However critics point out that Interactionists fail to say why people still
commit crimes even though they know they are considered deviant
- Interactionists also ignore why certain people are labelled as deviant and
other people aren’t
Feminism: Crime statistics tell us that men commit more crimes then
women, and sociologists have different explanations as to why this is.
Sutherland (1949) said girls have a stricter upbringing whereas boys are
encouraged to take risks; boys also have more opportunities to commit
crimes due to their freedom
Parsons (1955) said in the modern nuclear family men work and women
stay at home and nurse. Therefore young girls have more access to their
role model than the boys do as the father is working. Parsons said the
boys will reject the mother as a role model and will seek to be more
masculine through aggressive actions, leading to crime.
Before feminism, women were invisible in the sociological perspective.
Crime by women was explained by saying females criminals were a
‘special case’ and were a result of sexual promiscuity or biological
deviance. Essentially sociology didn’t accept that normal women
committed crime.
Feminists say that this ignorance of female crime is because society is
patriarchal and is focused on men, ignoring the women. So feminists
argue that the issue that other perspectives debate aren’t the really
important ones, the biggest problem is that women are ignored.
Bias in the criminal justice system
Otto Pollack (1950) in ‘the masked female offender’, argued that official
statistics on gender and crime seriously underestimate female criminality.
He argued that the criminal justice system tends to be made up of mostly
men. Brought up to be chivalrous, they are usually lenient with female
offenders. However, Heidensohn (1985) regards Pollack’s work as based
on an inaccurate stereotypical image of women.
Graham and Bowling (1995) conducted a self-report study of 14-25 yearolds and found that 55% of males but 35% of females admitted an
offence in the last year. This suggests that males do commit more
offences than females but the difference is not by much.
A vast amount of research has looked into the way in which the criminal
justice system might be gender bias.
Carlen found, using qualitative research on Scottish sheriffs and judges,
that sheriffs were less likely to imprison women whom were good
mothers but were more likely to punish single mothers or mothers with
children in care.
Allen found that females are treated more leniently for motoring offenses.
Also, women who conform to the judges’ perspective of femininity were
more likely to get lesser sentences.
This suggests that the feminist view that there is gender bias in the
criminal justice system is true
Left Realism: Jock Young, a left realist, said we need to be tough on
crime, especially crimes committed by the working class against the
working class.
In their publication ‘What is to be about Law and Order’ (1984) Lea and
Young said that crime is rooted in social conditions and crime is closely
connected to deprivation. However, this does not mean left realists see
crime as a result of unemployment directly; this is because they observed
crime rates in the 1930s when unemployment was very high and found
them to be lower that crime rates in the 1980s when unemployment was
low.
Relative deprivation is when a group feels deprived in comparison to
other similar groups, or when its expectations are not met. Young
highlighted how increased media influence could lead to increased crime
rates, as it leads to higher expectations so those in deprivation feel
increased effects of relative deprivation. It is when people feel deprived
in comparison to those around them (including those in the media) that
they commit crimes.
An example of this relative deprivation is that of the ex-mining towns.
For these towns employment was never a problem as everyone worked
down the mines. However as the mines have to closed jobs have been
lost, and suddenly people feel relative deprivation because their standards
of living aren’t as high as they had grown accustomed to in the past.
So, Young suggested that we should deal with crime by trying to decrease
the levels of social deprivation. This could be through welfare,
infrastructure improvements, the creation of jobs etc. All of this would
help reduce the feeling of relative deprivation and therefore the levels of
crime
Right Realism: Most of the perspectives on crime take a positivist
approach of conducting experiments in a scientific and empirical way.
Positivist approaches also say that our behaviour (including crime), is
determined by outside forces that we can’t control.
However, realist approaches say behaviour is determined by our choices
we make, as we have free-will. Wilson and Herrnstein said that criminal
behaviour is a choice made by people who have been incorrectly
socialised. They argue that society has become more and more used to
‘immediate gratification’. They also said that poor socialisation leads to a
lack of self-control.
This mix of immediate gratification and low self-control leads to people
making the choice to commit crimes.
Hirschi’s control theory – Hirschi said we all face the temptation to
commit crimes in life. However, most of us resist the temptation. This is
because we have strong ties to social institutions such as families and
schools. These institutions lead to correct socialisation, so those without
strong links to them are the most likely to commit crimes.
Charles Murray also said poor socialisation leads to crime; however, he
focused on why this is more common in the ‘underclass’. He said the
underclass wasn’t always those with the lowest income, but those who act
in a certain way. Murray said the underclasses are subjected to several
factors which lead to crime: violence, unemployment, poverty etc. and
this leads to higher crime.
Charles Murray said one of the main reasons we have an underclass is the
increase in childbirth outside of marriage. He said this increase in lone
parent families has led to an increase in people who are lazy, violent and
immoral. So Murray said childbirth outside of marriage is a factor
affecting crime.
Physiological theories: In his book L’Uomo Delinquente Cesare
Lombroso argued that criminals were throwbacks to an earlier and more
primitive form of human being. He said there were several characteristics,
such as large jaws, extra fingers and monobrows which were clear signs
that someone was a criminal.
Lombroso said that we can easily identify who the criminals, so we
should remove them from normal society and we can therefore remove
any criminals.
Evaluation
Research has found that there is undoubtedly a link between genetics and
behaviour; however this does not mean there is a link between genetics
and crime. To say crime is caused by genetics alone would be to ignore
all the social factors such as wealth, diet, health etc. and these clearly
have an effect.
The basic problem with Lombroso’s theory is that it is far too simplistic,
and we know there are many more factors that can cause crime then just
your genetics.
Postmodernism:
Postmodernism gives media analysis a central role:
Discourse: The role of the media here is two-fold. Firstly, media are
important because they spread and, in some senses control, organise,
criticise, promote and demote (marginalise) a variety of competing
narratives (ideas). Secondly, none of these are especially important in
themselves (teachers and students, for example, probably do most of
these things); they become, important, however, in the context of power
and the ability to represent the interests of powerful voices in society. In a
situation where knowledge, as Sarup (1989) argues, is “fragmented,
partial and contingent” (“relative” or dependent on your particular
viewpoint) and Milovanovic (1997) contends: “There are many truths and
no over-encompassing Truth is possible”, the role of the media assumes
crucial significance in relation to perceptions of crime and deviance in
contemporary societies.
Fascination: Crime and deviance represent “media staples” used to sell
newspapers encourage us to watch TV programmes (factual and fictional)
and so forth. These two narratives (fear and fascination) come together
when postmodernists such as Kidd-Hewitt and Osborne (1995) discuss
deviance in terms of: Spectacle – crime is interesting (and sells media
products) because of the powerful combination of fear and fascination.
An example of “postmodern spectacle” is the attack on the World Trade
Centre in 2001, not only because of the “fear aspect” but also because of
the way the attack seemed to key into – and mimics – a Hollywood
disaster film.
Intersexuality: Both “reality” and “fiction” are interwoven to construct an
almost seamless web of “fear and fascination”, where the viewer is no
longer sure whether what they are seeing is real or reconstruction.
Kooistra and Mahoney (1999), for example, argue that “tabloid
journalism” is now the dominant force in the representation of crime and
deviance – presentation techniques once the preserve of tabloid
newspapers, for example, have been co-opted into the general mainstream
of news production and presentation (where “entertainment and
sensationalism” are essential components for any news organization
trying to break into particular economic markets or preserve and enhance
market share in those markets).
Example of a postmodern criminology Constitutive criminology: The
basic idea here is to adopt what Henry and Milovanovic (1999) call a:
Holistic approach, involving a “duality of blame” that moves the debate
away from thinking about the “causes of crime” and the “obsession with a
crime and punishment cycle” towards a “different criminology” theorized
around what Muncie (2000) terms:
Social Harm: To understand crime we have to “move beyond” notions
centred around “legalistic definitions” – we have to include a range of
ideas (poverty, pollution, corporate corruption and the like) in any
definition of both harm and, more importantly, crime (which, as Henry
and Milovanovic put it, involves: “The exercise of the power to deny
others their own humanity”). In this respect, a constitutive criminology
“redefines crime as the harm resulting from investing energy in relations
of power that involves pain, conflict and injury”. In other words, some
people (criminals) invest a great deal of their time and effort in activities
(crime) that harm others physically, psychologically, economically and so
forth.
In this respect, Henry and Milovanovic characterise such people as:
Excessive investors in the power to harm others – and the way to
diminish their excessive investment in such activities is to empower their
victims. Thus, rather than seeing punishment in traditional terms
(imprisonment, for example, that does little or nothing for the victim) we
should see it in terms of:
Redistributive justice: – something that De Haan (1990) suggests
involves redefining “punishment” – away from hurting the offender
(which perpetuates the “cycle of harm”) to redressing the offence by
“compensating the victim”. This form of peacemaking criminology
focuses on reconnecting offenders and their victims in ways that actively
seek to redress the balance of harm. Constitutive criminology moves the
focus onto an assessment of “harm” caused to the victims of crime and,
by extension, the social relationship between offender and victim. It
draws on a range of sociological ideas, both theoretical (holistic
approaches to understanding deviance for example) – and practical (such
as the concept of “redress”) to argue for a less punitive approach to
deviance and a more consensual approach to understanding the complex
relationship between crime, deviance, social control and punishment.
There are, however, a couple of points we need to consider here:
Harm: As Henry and Milovanovic (1996) define it, “harm” results “from
any attempt to reduce or suppress another’s position or potential standing
through the use of power”. The danger here, however, is that it broadens
the definition of crime and deviance in ways that redefine these concepts
out of existence (which may, of course, be the intention). Such a
definition, for example, could equally apply to a teacher in classroom or
an employer in a workplace.
Criticisms:
Definitions of crime: Extending the notion of crime to include, for
example, “linguistic hate crimes” (such as racism and sexism) may not
cause too much of a problem; however it does raise questions of where
such a definition should begin and end (it may, for example, have the
unintended consequence of criminalising large areas of social behaviour
that are currently not criminalised).
Rethink: Without a radical rethink / overhaul of the way we see and deal
with crime and deviance as a society, “redistributive justice” may simply
be incorporated into conventional forms of crime control. In this respect
we might characterise this type of criminology as:
Idealistic: in the sense that, rather than providing an alternative to
conventional forms of “crime and punishment”, ideas about redistributive
justice simply provide another link in the chain of social control.