Theories of Crime & Deviance (AQA A Level Sociology): Flashcards

Cohen argues that high levels of crime can signal that key institutions are failing, e.g. high truancy may signal problems in education.

Davis argued that prostitution acts as a safety valve for men's sexual frustrations.

Crime can create social cohesion when shared outrage, e.g. after a terrorist attack, unites diverse communities.

Durkheim is criticised for not explaining the causes of crime because he focuses on the functions of crime but does not explain why it happens in the first place; crimes are not committed to strengthen solidarity.

False.

Durkheim assumes crime benefits society as a whole, but some groups suffer more than others and crime is never functional for the victim.

Marxists argue that Durkheim ignores the role of the powerful, who shape laws so that their harmful actions, e.g. corporate crime, are not defined as criminal.

Merton adapted Durkheim's concept of anomie to explain crime.

The American Dream is the belief that anyone can achieve prosperity and upward mobility through hard work.

Strain is produced by the gap between society's emphasis on shared goals and unequal access to legitimate opportunities.

When legitimate opportunities are blocked, individuals may turn to illegitimate means to achieve success.

False.

Merton saw crime as a social product of the gap between cultural goals and the means of achieving them.

Conformity is the most common response, especially among the middle class, who have good opportunities.

Innovation is the adaptation where individuals accept society's goals but use illegitimate means, such as theft or fraud, to achieve them.

Individuals who abandon society's goals but follow the rules rigidly display ritualism.

Retreatism is the adaptation where individuals reject both society's goals and legitimate means and 'drop out' of society, e.g. drug addicts and vagrants.

True.

Rebels, such as political radicals or revolutionaries, reject existing goals and means and replace them with new ones.

Strain theory shows that criminals and non-criminals are driven by the same goals but pursue them through different means.

Strain theory is criticised as too deterministic because it assumes everyone is motivated by monetary success, yet many people facing strain do not commit crime.

Marxists argue that Merton fails to explain white-collar and corporate crime, often committed by the wealthy.

False.

Strain theory focuses on utilitarian crime with a financial motive, not crimes such as violence or vandalism.

Subcultural theory focuses on youth gangs and peer groups because delinquency often happens in groups, not alone.

Cohen argued that Merton could not explain non-utilitarian crimes, such as vandalism, fighting and truancy.

Status frustration is the frustration working-class boys feel when they are blocked from gaining status and respect, e.g. by being judged by middle-class standards at school.

In delinquent subcultures, behaviours condemned by mainstream society are praised.

A delinquent subculture provides an alternative status hierarchy that measures success in peer respect rather than academic achievement.

False.

Feminists criticise Cohen for ignoring female delinquency; his theory is seen as overly male-focused.

Cohen's theory is criticised as too deterministic because it assumes all working-class boys strive for middle-class success goals, yet some may never value educational achievement.

Miller argued that working-class delinquency stems from exaggerating cultural values, or focal concerns, rather than strain.

For Cloward and Ohlin, the type of deviant subculture depends on the local opportunity structure available.

A criminal subculture is found in stable working-class areas with long-standing criminal networks, where youths learn utilitarian crime through apprenticeships and role models.

Conflict subcultures are found in unstable areas with high population turnover.

In a conflict subculture, delinquency takes the form of violence, turf wars and gang conflict.

Double failures are those who fail in both mainstream society and other subcultures, and so form retreatist subcultures.

False.

Cloward and Ohlin argued that not all young people respond in the same way; the response depends on the area.

Cloward and Ohlin are said to overstate divisions because in reality subcultures overlap, e.g. gangs mix violence with organised drug crime.

Recent strain theories suggest young people pursue goals beyond money, such as peer popularity or independence from adults, which middle-class youths may also struggle to reach.

Gordon meant that capitalism, by its very nature, produces crime.

Alienation and lack of control create frustration, which can lead to non-utilitarian crimes such as violence and vandalism.

False.

Capitalist values such as consumerism, greed and competition encourage crime at all levels of society.

Chambliss argued that laws protecting private property are central to capitalism.

Snider (1993) argues that the capitalist state resists laws that regulate business.

Selective law enforcement is when the law is applied unequally, so the powerless are criminalised while crimes of the powerful are often ignored.

Reiman and Leighton argued that the more likely a crime is to be committed by higher-class people, the less likely it is to be treated as criminal.

Marxists see laws such as health and safety legislation as cosmetic because they protect capitalism's image while appearing to benefit workers.

Making crime appear a working-class problem serves capitalism because it divides workers and hides exploitation.

The media present criminals as disturbed individuals, concealing that capitalism itself produces crime.

False.

Not all capitalist societies have high crime rates; e.g. Japan and Switzerland have much lower homicide rates than the USA.

Left Realists say Marxists romanticise working-class criminals because they ignore the harm working-class criminals cause to their own communities.

Corporate crime is an offence committed by a business to maximise profit, often against employees, consumers or the environment, e.g. price-fixing.

An example of a corporate crime against workers is the Rana Plaza collapse (Bangladesh, 2013), where over 1,100 workers were killed after management ignored cracks in the building.

Complexity makes corporate crime invisible because it involves technical details and multiple individuals, making it hard to detect and prove responsibility.

False.

Corporate crimes are often treated as civil offences or misconduct, and penalties are usually fines, not prison.

Box argued that companies innovate illegally when profits cannot be achieved legally.

Sutherland argued that crime is learned within groups, so a company culture that normalises rule-breaking socialises employees into crime.

Braithwaite found that US pharmaceutical firms that complied with FDA rules gained access to lucrative overseas markets, so obeying the law can be profitable.

Neo-Marxism combines Marxist ideas about inequality and capitalism with labelling theory, which sees crime as socially constructed.

True.

Like traditional Marxists, Taylor, Walton and Young argued that capitalism creates crime, so a classless society would greatly reduce it.

Neo-Marxists argue that traditional Marxism is too deterministic, portraying the working class as passive victims of capitalism.

Voluntarism is the view that individuals are active agents with free will, so crime is a conscious, meaningful choice.

Taylor et al. argue that crime can be understood as a form of political protest against capitalism.

Taylor et al. interpret burglary and robbery as attempts to redistribute wealth from the rich to the poor.

False.

Neo-Marxists see vandalism as a symbolic attack on capitalism's obsession with property.

The ruling class uses the state apparatus, such as the police, to control working-class resistance, often targeting poorer areas.

The fully social theory of deviance is Taylor et al.'s (1973) framework combining Marxist and interactionist ideas to give a comprehensive understanding of crime.

The fully social theory links micro-level meanings, such as individual motives, with macro-level structures, such as capitalism and power.

Taylor et al. aimed to understand crime in a way that could help change society for the better.

Lea and Young argue that neo-Marxists romanticise criminals as political rebels, when most working-class crime targets other working-class people.

Feminists criticise Taylor et al. for focusing mainly on male criminality and neglecting women.

False.

Critics argue the fully social theory is too abstract and difficult to apply in practice.

Hopkins Burke argued that critical criminology is too general to explain crime and too idealistic to help tackle it.

For Becker, deviance is not the act itself but the reaction to it; a person becomes deviant when a label is successfully applied.

False.

Interactionists see crime and deviance as socially constructed; what counts as deviant varies with context, time and culture.

According to labelling theory, rules and laws are created by powerful groups, and those who fail to conform are labelled outsiders.

Cicourel found that police decisions are shaped by stereotypes, so working-class youths are more likely to be arrested and charged than middle-class youths.

Cicourel argued that middle-class parents can negotiate justice, so their children receive warnings instead of prosecution.

Cicourel argued that official statistics should be treated as a topic to investigate, not as facts about crime.

The dark figure of crime is the unknown amount of crime that is unreported or unrecorded.

A master status is when a deviant label becomes a person's dominant identity, e.g. being known only as a 'criminal'.

Lemert defined primary deviance as minor, widespread acts that are not publicly labelled and have little effect on self-concept.

Secondary deviance is deviance that results from societal reaction and the application of a label.

A deviance amplification spiral is when attempts to control deviance make it worse, leading to even stronger control in an escalating spiral.

Cohen showed that media exaggeration created a moral panic, and harsher policing demonised the youths as 'folk devils', pushing them into more deviance.

Atkinson argued that coroners use common-sense knowledge, such as stereotypes, to decide the cause of death, so suicide rates reflect labelling processes.

False.

Interactionists see mental illness as a social construction: a label attached by powerful groups, such as psychiatrists.

Douglas argued that we should study the meanings individuals attach to suicide.

Rosenhan showed that healthy volunteers admitted as 'schizophrenic' were treated as mentally ill despite acting normally, as the label became their master status.

Reintegrative shaming is condemning the act, not the person; Braithwaite found that societies using it have lower crime rates.

False.

Labelling theory cannot explain primary deviance, as people break rules before being labelled.

Downes and Rock argued that a deviant career is not inevitable, as individuals may reject labels.

Unlike interactionists, right realists see crime as a real, growing problem that destroys communities and threatens morality.

False.

Right realists reject structural explanations; they blame biology, inadequate socialisation, rational choice and weak social controls.

Wilson and Herrnstein proposed a biosocial theory: crime is caused by both biological and social factors.

Murray argued that the growth of the underclass, fuelled by welfare dependency, has led to rising crime rates.

For right realists, the nuclear family is the best agency of socialisation.

Rational choice theory is the view that criminals have free will and weigh up rewards against risks before choosing to commit a crime.

Felson argues that crime occurs when a motivated offender meets a suitable target without a capable guardian.

Hirschi argues that people do not commit crime because they have too much to lose.

In Hirschi's control theory, commitment means fear of losing jobs, houses and lifestyles.

Zero tolerance policing is cracking down on even low-level deviance, such as begging and drunkenness, to prevent escalation to serious crime.

Broken windows theory argues that neglecting minor signs of disorder, such as graffiti, signals the collapse of social control and encourages serious crime.

False.

Right realist policies focus on deterrence and surveillance, not offender rehabilitation.

Target hardening is making crime riskier and less rewarding, e.g. through CCTV, stronger locks and visible policing.

Three strikes laws are US laws that impose mandatory harsh sentences for repeat offenders.

Young claimed the success was a myth: crime had already started falling before 1994 and also fell in cities without the policy.

Right realist policing strategies are criticised on grounds of fairness because they give police wide discretion, which can lead to discriminatory practices, e.g. disproportionate stop and search of minorities.

The displacement criticism is that crime may be displaced to other areas rather than genuinely reduced.

Unlike Marxists, left realists are reformist, not revolutionary: they want gradual reform and practical solutions now rather than waiting for a revolution.

Relative deprivation is the feeling of being deprived compared with others, which arises when expectations for consumer goods and lifestyles rise faster than the opportunities to achieve them.

False.

Left realists see crime as a real problem especially for disadvantaged groups, such as the working class, women and ethnic minorities.

Left realists criticise labelling theorists for treating offenders as victims of labels while ignoring the real victims of crime.

Young (1986) argued that rising crime rates from the 1950s onwards created an aetiological crisis.

Left realists used victim surveys, such as the British Crime Survey, to show that the rise in crime was real.

According to Lea and Young (1984), individualism leads to crime because self-interest grows while community controls, such as family and neighbours, weaken, removing informal deterrents.

Marginalisation is the position of groups at the bottom of society who feel powerless and excluded, which can create resentment and hostility towards the police and wider society.

According to left realists, some young people join subcultures because they provide status and a sense of belonging.

True.

The media exposes everyone to consumerist lifestyles, but not everyone can afford them; this gap between aspirations and reality fuels more crime.

New Labour's slogan 'tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime' reflects the influence of left realism.

Kinsey, Lea and Young (1986) argued that the police must work with the public, not against them, with priorities set through community input.

Left realists call for a multi-agency approach in which the police work with schools, housing, councils and voluntary groups.

Left realists propose investing in education, housing and community facilities and providing decent jobs for all; tackling discrimination is another reform.

Katz (1988) argues that some crime is motivated by excitement or thrill, not by inequality.

True.

Relative deprivation has increased without crime rising at the same pace, and most working-class and ethnic-minority youths conform rather than offend.