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Crime & Deviance> What you need to know:
Deviance & Crime
you should be able to:
 Explain the difference between crime and deviance
 Describe the ways in which individuals are encouraged to
abide legal and social rules through informal and formal
social control.
 Describe the process of deviance amplification and the
role of the mass media in gender stereotyping.
In your own words give some examples of the above points:
Sociological Approaches
you should be able to:
 demonstrate a basic understanding of different
sociological explanations of criminal and deviant
behaviour. For example: Subcultural explanations,
labeling theory, risk theory and strain theory.
 discuss the theories by referring to class, gender and
ethnic differences.
 recognize that official statistics, self-report studies
and victim studies do have their uses but that they also
have limitations.
In your own words give some examples of the above points:
Crime & Society
you should be able to:
 describe the social significance of criminal & deviant
behaviour. In other words there are positive links
between such behavior and change within society.
In your own words give some examples of the above points:
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Deviance & Crime

Explain the difference between crime and deviance
Sociologists illustrate a difference between crime & deviance. A crime is an act
that breaks the criminal law of society. Deviance refers to behaviour that is
disapproved of by most people in society as it does conform to society’s norms &
values.
Is deviance always illegal?
Deviant behaviour may be illegal but not all deviant acts are against the law.
Legal deviance will be considered ‘abnormal’ in some way by most people in a
society. For example a woman who owns a 60 cats or someone who wears their
clothes inside out. Illegal deviance is criminal and is punishable by the state. For
example, murdering an old lady or rape.
Check your understanding
1.)
Explain the difference between legal and illegal deviance (2 marks)
2.)
Give 2 examples of acts which are against the law but which are not
usually considered deviant (2 marks)
3.)
Give 2 other examples of deviant acts which are not against the law
(2 marks)
When is an act deviant?
Many sociologists believe that deviance is socially defined. In other words
whether an act is seen as deviant or not depends on the particular social setting
it takes place.
Consider the example of nudity. Being naked in the bath, shower, sauna is seen as
perfectly acceptable. However, in a supermarket, at a pop concert or on a
football pitch nudity would be seen as deviant.
Sociologists argue that what is considered deviant depends not on the act itself
but how others react to it. Deviance is defined according to the social setting
in which the act takes place. It is socially defined.

You should be able to describe the ways in which
individuals are encouraged to abide legal and social rules
through informal and formal social control.
Why do most people conform or go along with most of the rules most of the
time? Social Control refers to the processes by which most people are
persuaded to obey the rules.
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Activity:
In order to explore the processes of social control, choose 2 settings with which
you are familiar, for example a football match, a shopping center or home and
answer the following:1.) State 3 rules that operate in each setting.
2.) Explain briefly why you stick to each of these rules.
3.) If the rules were broken what would happen to you – the individual – and
to society?
In explaining how social control operates, sociologists point to the role of
AGENCIES OF SOCIAL CONTROL. These are the groups and organizations in
society that serve to ensure that most people conform and stick to the rules
most of the time. Sociologists have identified 2 different types of social control:
Formal & Informal Social Control.
Formal Social Control
This is based on written rules and laws. There are 4 main agencies:
1.) Houses of Parliament: make laws to control behavior.
2.) Police force: enforce the law and investigate crime.
3.) Courts: to find out if a defendant is guilty and decide on sentencing
4.) Prison: punishes lawbreakers and stops other people from committing crime.
Informal Social Control
This type of control is based on informal processes such as the approval and
disapproval of others. It is reinforced through the reaction of group members
such as families, friends, workmates and bosses.
Activity:
Write down a list of 5 negative reactions towards individuals who do not conform
to the group’s expectations (it has been started off for you):
1.) ridiculing them,
4.)
2.) ignoring them,
5.)
3.)
Now write down 5 positive reactions:
1.) promotion
4.)
2.) pay rise
5.)
3.)
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There are a number of different AGENCIES OF SOCIALIZATION, which
carry out socialization and try to prevent people from becoming criminal or
deviant in the first place. These agencies include:
* families
* peer groups
* religions
* mass media
* schools
* the workplace
Check your understanding
1. Identify two agencies of formal social control and explain,
in each case, how they control people’s behaviour.
2. Identify and describe two ways in which society tries to prevent
people from becoming criminals.

(4 marks)
(4 marks)
You should be able to describe the process of deviance
amplification and the role of the mass media in gender
stereotyping.
Deviancy amplification
It has been argued that in certain circumstances the labelling of some groups as
deviant by agencies such as the media and the police can actually generate more
deviance. This idea is known as deviancy amplification. We will examine two
examples of deviancy amplification here; the role of the mass media and the role
of the police.
The mass media
The mass media are very powerful in their ability to label certain groups as
deviant. As most people may never meet the labelled groups themselves, the
description of the group of individuals given by the media will be in the image
they hold of them. As the media tend to sensationalize issues in order to
attract readers and viewers, it is likely that the labels attached to groups will be
exaggerated in order to generate interest.
It has been suggested that newspapers and television create folk devils – that is
people who are supposedly the source of tremendous disruption to society. The
interest created by the media in these folk devils makes good news, but also
causes moral panics. A moral panic is the situation where a group of folk devils
(such as football hooligans or drug addicts or binge drinkers) is presented so
often in the media as evil and troublesome, that the public and the police become
obsessed with eliminating it. Greater police resources are allocated to the
control of this group and as a consequence more arrests are made.
The point is that the creation of the labels by the media and the moral panic
that follows are based on great exaggeration of the true amount of trouble
caused by the labelled group.
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The police
The activities of the police are guided by ideas of which groups constitute the
most likely to cause trouble to society and how they ought to be handled. In
particular working-class and black youths are seen to be potential troublemakers.
The police therefore tend to stop and search working-class and black youths far
more often than any other group in the population. The result is that they are
more likely to uncover crime among this group. And this, of course, proves to
them that they are right to pick on this group in the first place. The police
therefore will put greater resources into controlling this group and there is a
corresponding rise in criminality which is uncovered.
Gender and crime
Female crime is very low compared to male crime, with five male offenders for
every one female offender known to the police, and with women forming only
1500 of the 55,000 people in prison.
Explanations for female crime
There are three types of explanations centring on:
 different socialisation;
 social control;
 lack of opportunity.
Different socialisation
Females are generally socialised into a pattern of values and actions which stress
that women are less aggressive and violent. These roles are taught through
parents, schools, the media, etc. Socialisation is into the roles such as
parent/carer, which rely upon responsibility and awareness of the needs of
others.
Social control
Women are not only socialised differently, they are more strictly controlled in
their attitudes and activities. Women are expected to base themselves and their
lives in the home. There are two spheres of life - that dominated by men
(streets after dark, pubs, the workplace) male sphere in which crime takes place.
Male monopoly of violence Women are strongly discouraged from violence,
whereas the potential for its use remains an element of masculinity.
Reputation Women have to be careful of their public displays of behaviour for
fear of being labelled as promiscuous, etc. Lees’ study of schoolgirls (Losing
Out), shows how girls label other girls, and this constrains behaviour.
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Opportunity to commit crime
Throughout their lives females are shielded from opportunities to commit crime.
Socialisation does not equip them with the aggressive male attitudes to violence.
Social control keeps them under the surveillance of parents, their peer group and
male partners.
Career opportunities for women are more limited and they are rarely in the
position to commit fraud or other forms of white-collar crime.
 You should be able to demonstrate a basic understanding of different
sociological explanations of criminal and deviant behaviour. For example:
Subcultural explanations, labeling theory, risk theory and strain theory.
Sociological explanations of crime and delinquency
Sociologists have suggested a number of possible explanations for criminal
behaviour. These include:
 the Subcultural approach;
 Anomie;
 Labelling theory.
The Subcultural approach
A subculture is a smaller culture held by a group of people within the main
culture of a society, in some ways different from the dominant culture, but with
many aspects in common. For example lower working class men value wealth but
also value acting tough which may come into conflict with the law.
While lower working class young people accept the main goals of society, like
wealth and educational success, they have little chance of attaining them. This is
because they live in deprived areas, with poor schools and the worst chances in
the job market. They therefore develop status frustration. This simply means
they lack the status in society, and feel frustration at being unable to achieve
status by accepted means.
Their response to this sense of status frustration is to develop a set of
alternative, deviant values which provides them alternative ways of gaining
status: a deviant subculture. At school, playing truant, messing about in class,
and destroying school property may replace the values of studying and getting
exam success. Stealing becomes a means of getting money, replacing career
success, and vandalism replaces respect for poverty. Such acts of delinquency
enable some lower-working class youths to gain a status in their peer group that
the wider society has denied them. Delinquency also gives them a way of getting
their revenge on the system that has condemned them to failure.
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Anomie or Strain Theory
Robert Merton has suggested that all societies in order to motivate people
provide them with some aim that they can achieve through hard work. However,
in certain times the aim (which is usually to be financially well off) becomes
impossible for the majority of the population, and especially for the working
class to attain, e.g. in periods of high unemployment. Merton argues that this
leads to an increase in the level of crime, as people turn to illegal means to
achieve financial success because of a strain placed on them. Merton calls this
situation when the goals of society are not possible by conventional means
anomie.
Labelling Theory
In order to simplify and make sense of the world, we classify objects and people.
For example, we talk about ‘flowers’, naming a whole variety of plants, or ‘houses’
a term that covers hundreds of different styles of dwelling. When it comes to
people we also clarify or apply labels such as ‘troublemaker’, a ‘homosexual’, a
‘fool’, or a ‘saint’. Each label carries with it a complete package of images and
prejudices. The result is that we treat people very differently according to the
label. For example once someone is caught and labelled as a criminal or deviant,
the label attached may become the dominant label or Master Status. This label
will then override all other characteristics that person has. In other words, he
or she becomes an ex-con, thief, hooligan etc instead of someone's
wife/husband, daughter/son, friend, co-worker etc. The consequences of
labelling can be very great for a person - altering his or her whole life. The
results of labelling have been called a deviant career by labelling sociologists,
meaning that if a person is given the label of being a deviant, then he/she will
find him/herself treated very differently by others and this, in turn, will
influence his or her own behaviour.
Activity
Read the following stories of the 2 people who both steal some money. In your
own words write some brief notes as to how labelling may affect their lives. Try
to use the keywords highlighted in the text above.
Person A This person is caught and labelled a thief:
____________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________
Person B This person is not caught and life continues as before:
____________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________
____________
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 You should be able to recognise that official statistics, self-report
studies and victim studies do have their uses but that they also have
limitations.
Understanding criminal statistics
Official statistics need to be treated with considerable caution. In 1993,
only about 4% of crimes were reported to the police.
Why are crimes not reported to the police?
The British Crime Survey revealed that people failed to report crime to the
police because:
 They regarded the matter as too trivial, e.g. only a small amount of money
stolen;
 They felt the police would be unable to do anything about the offence, e.g. a
theft from a busy shop which could have been committed by anyone;
 They felt it was a private matter they could deal with themselves; e.g. theft
between friends;
 They feared or disliked the police, e.g. drug user who has been tricked into
parting with his money for a ‘bad deal’;
 We can add to these that in the case of sexual offences, women who have
been sexually assaulted often feel too embarrassed and humiliated to report
it to the police.
Failure of police to record crime
Police may not record crime where:
 They regard the complaint of too low a status or too unreliable to take
seriously, e.g. a complaint by a tramp or a drunk.
 They may regard the crime as too trivial to waste their time on, e.g. theft of
a few pence;
 They may regard the matter as having nothing to do with them, even though
it is technically an illegal act, e.g. less serious marital violence as a result of a
quarrel between husband and wife;
 The decision to define an act as illegal and to respond to it as such is
dependent on the policeman or policewoman’s discretion.
Policing Policies
Certain police forces tend to pursue certain crimes more than others. They tend
to respond to moral panics created by the media. Therefore if there is strong
public pressure to clamp down on binge drinking for example then the crime rates
for that crime will increase whilst other levels of crime will decrease. This limits
the official statistics, as they are obviously not based on a true rate of crime.
Rather they reflect what type of crime the police are targeting at particular
moment in time.
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White Collar Crime
It might appear that all crime is committed by the lower social classes. This is
not so. People commit crimes from every class, gender, age and ethnicity.
Sociologists use the term white-collar crime to refer to those crimes
committed by individuals in high status positions in their workplace. Examples
include tax evasion, fraud, fiddling expenses and professional misconduct.
White-collar is under-reported for a number of reasons. Quite often there are
no victims as it is often seen as a victimless crime. Very often when individuals
are found to be committing offences at work their cases do not go to court as
this would be bad publicity for the company. Guilty parties may be dealt with by
the firm’s own internal procedures to prevent such bad publicity.
Corporate crime is also underreported. This is a type of crime that benefits big
companies rather than individuals. For example, firms that do not follow antipollution legislation in order to maximise their profits. Other examples include
failure to follow Health & Safety laws. Think of Montgomery Burns out of The
Simpson’s.
These types of crime all contribute to the inaccuracy of Official Statistics in
trying to show us the true rates of crime being committed.
Advantages of Official Stats
 The police provide figures which are
published every six months
 Includes crime against those under
16, commercial crime and fraud,
homeless people and those in care etc
(something the Victim Surveys do not)
 Measures victimless crime, murder
and manslaughter, fraud & sexual
offences
 Collects information about the
number of arrests, who is arrested, the
number of crimes detected, and by
what method
Disadvantages of Official Stats
 Provides measures of offences both
reported to and recorded by the police.
As such they are influenced by changes
in reporting and recording rules and
practices
 Does not show which groups of the
population are most at risk of becoming
a victim.
Activity: Add some of your own points to the
above table – Think about policing policies,
white-collar crime and official statistics.
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Patterns of crime according to Official Statistics
 Crime rose steadily until the early 1990s after which time there has been a
decline.
 The two most common offences for which people are prosecuted are (i) theft
and handling stolen goods, and (ii) burglary.
 Violent crime comprises only about 5% of all offences recorded by the police.
 Sexual offences comprise only about 1% of offences recorded (though, as we
shall see later, this is an underestimate as many women are reluctant to
report sexual offences committed against them).
Who commits crime? Figure based on Official Statistics
The statistics indicate that:
 males are far more likely to commit crime than females, the proportion is
approximately 5 to 1;
 that the peak age for committing crime for males is between 16 and 19;
 the peak age for committing crime for females is between 13 and 15.
Crime is therefore more likely to be committed by young males. Approximately
one-third of all men under 30 have been prosecuted or cautioned for a criminal
offence.
Check your Understanding
1. Identify and explain three reasons why the recorded rate of
crime may not include all crimes committed.
(6 marks)
Alternatives to Official Statistics
Even though official statistics do have their uses they also have their
weaknesses. There are 2 alternatives to Official Statistics: Victim Studies &
Self-report Studies. We will now examine an example of a victim study: British
Crime Survey.
The British Crime Survey (BCS) conducted by the Home Office shows that only
one in four crimes of property offences and one in five offences of violence were
recorded in the official statistics. Interestingly, and perhaps alarmingly as well,
over the time of the surveys the actual number of crimes reported to the police
has risen, while a smaller proportion of crimes (our of all those committed) are
reported to the police.
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


Advantages of BCS
It measures both reported and

unreported crime. Therefore the
trends in crime it identifies are

more accurate and are not affected
by policing polices etc
Measures crime every 2 years
Collects information on what
happens in crime e.g. when crimes

occur, and effects in terms of
injury and property loss
Provides information about how the
risk of crime varies for different
groups of people.
Disadvantages of BCS
The sample might be too small and
unrepresentative
Does not include crime against
those under 16, commercial or
property crime and it does not
account for crimes against people
and those in care or prison.
Does not measure victimless crime
e.g. drug misuse, fraud or sexual
offences
Examples of the striking differences between Official Statistics & Victim
Studies include:
 robbery is twice as likely to occur to those under 45 than over;
 robbery is twice as likely to occur to men than to women;
 80% of the victims of assault is a single male, under the age of 30, who goes
out to pubs more than twice a week, to drink fairly heavily, and who himself
assaults others!
 the risk of being burgled is five times higher for those living in urban areas.
Those of Afro-Caribbean origin and Asian origin were more likely to be the
victims of crimes. Those of Asian origin in particular were more likely to suffer
higher levels of loss or damage, and greater levels of violence against them.
Over 24% of Asian origin victims believed that the offence was primarily racist
in character, compared to 15% of those of Afro-Caribbean origins.
An example of a self-report study is the Youth Lifestyles Survey
Because the official statistics only tell us about who gets caught they cannot tell
about what kinds of people who offend and how often they offend. If police only
give informal cautions to offenders they wont appear in the official figures
either.
Self-report studies can show us how much crime is committed, what kinds of
offences people commit, how often people offend and what groups are most
likely to offend.
The Youth Lifestyles survey used a sample of 12-30 year olds living in England &
Wales. The survey was conducted through a face-to-face interview and a selfcompletion questionnaire.
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Activity
There are methodological limitations with self-report studies. Some of these
have been listed below. See if can add any more of your own ideas:
Limitations:
 Some people may not be honest as they might think they will incriminated
 Some people may lie or exaggerate
Crime & Society
You should be able to:
 Describe the social significance of criminal and deviant behaviour. In other
words there are positive links between such behaviour and change within
society.
We must recognize that deviance, and even crime, are not by any means always
harmful to society. Much crime remains fairly trivial, and the wide range of nonconformist behaviour, its quirks and oddities, add a richness of colour and
variety to what might otherwise be a drab existence.
Without deviance, event without crime, there would be no possibility of
innovation and change. The revels and the reformers, the heretics and the
inventors, and campaigners for peace and justice have all been labeled as
deviants or criminals at one time or another. Yet it is these non-conformists who
have contributed to changes which many would regard as of benefit to all.
Deviance should be treated with an open mind, for what is regarded as deviant
today is often the accepted behaviour of tomorrow.
Check your Understanding
1. How would you explain the fact that there are far fewer
women than men in prisons in England and Wales?
2. Explain why there appears to be less crime in rural areas than
in urban areas of the UK.
3. Identify and explain two reasons why official crime statistics
may be misleading.
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Activity: Write a definition for each of the following keyterms
Agenda-setting
Anomie.
Norms.
Deviance.
Deviancy amplification.
Deviant career.
Gate-keeping.
Labelling.
Laws.
Master status.
Moral panic.
Norm-setting.
Scapegoats.
Social control.
Formal Social Control
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Informal Social Control
Status frustration.
Stereotype
Sub-culture
Activity
 Define social control and explain how it is carried out formally and informally
through agencies of social control.
 Explain the differences between crime and deviance.
 Explain how and why definitions of deviance vary.
 Explain the link between deviance and power.
 Describe and explain the pattern of crime shown in the official crime
statistics.
 Explain why white-collar and corporate crime often go undetected or
unrecorded.
 Explain a range of reasons why the official crime statistics provide no
accurate record of the full extent of crime in society.
 Explain why an increase in the official crime rate might not necessarily mean
that there has been an increase in the real amount of crime.
 Provide a range of sociological explanations of crime, delinquency, and
deviance.
 Describe and explain the ideas of labelling and deviant careers.
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Activity: Exam Practice Questions
There are some examples of past paper questions. Familiarise
your self with the layout.
1.)
2.)
For each year can you notice a pattern of what sorts of
essay questions are asked? You have June 2003-June
2005.
For each of the essay questions (these are the last
questions which award the most marks) Draw a table and
list some points for and against the question. The
example has been done you:
June 2003:
Some sociologists say that victim surveys or self report
studies can provide a more accurate view of the extent of
some crimes than the official statistics. Explain how far this is
so. (7marks)
In your answer you might like to consider:
 reasons for non-reporting of crime
 policing polices
 likelihood of honest responses
List points that show how
useful victim surveys & selfreport are. You need to also
highlight disadvantages of
official crime statistics.
List points that show how
useful official crime statistics
are. You need to also highlight
disadvantages of victim
surveys & self-report
studies.
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