There are 4 different justifications for punishment, and they link to different penal policies. Deterrence Punishment may prevent future crime from fear of further punishment Rehabilitation re-educating offenders so they no longer offend Incapacitation removing the...
One definition of victims is those who have suffered harm through acts that violate the laws of the state. However, Christie argues that ‘victim’ is socially constructed. The stereotype of an ‘ideal victim’ is weak, blameless and a target. There are 2 approaches to...
Sociologists have put forward several ways of defining state crime: Domestic law Chambliss defines state crime as acts defined by the law as criminal and committed by state officials in pursuit of their jobs as state representatives. Social harms and zemiology...
The authoritarian personality- Adorno- F scale – many Germans had authoritarian personality types due to the disciplinarian socialisation common at the time. Crimes of obedience state crimes involve obeying higher authority-the state- as part of a role into which...
Situational crime prevention Pre-emptive approach that relies on reducing opportunities for crime. Target hardening means reshaping the environment to design crime out of an area. Underlying SCP is a rational choice theory; the idea that criminals act rationally,...
Surveillance involves monitoring behaviour for the purpose of control. E.g. CCTV, however, Norris found that CCTV has little or no effect on most crimes and may even cause displacement. Foucault; the panopticon A prison design where prisoners cells are visible to the...
Evidence strongly suggests that most offenders are men. Attention has been focused on the concept of masculinity to explain this. Messerschmidt: accomplishing masculinity He argues that masculinity is an accomplishment. Something that men have to constantly work at...
Official statistics show ethnic differences in the likelihood of being involved in the criminal justice system. For example, blacks are 7x more likely than whites to be stopped and search and 5x more likely to be in prison. However, victim surveys and self-report...
There are ethnic differences at each stage of the CJ process. How far are they the result of racism within the CJS? Policing Phillips and Bowling note that there have been many allegations of oppressive policing of minority communities, including: Mass stop and search...
Neo-Marxists such a Gilroy and Hall reject the view that the statistics reflect reality. Rather, they are the outcome of a social construction process that stereotypes minorities as more criminal than whites. Gilroy: the myth of black criminality Gilroy argues that...
Crime and deviance make up a large proportion of news coverage. However, the media give a distorted image of crime, criminals and policing. News Values and Crime Coverage The social construction of the news the distorted picture of crime painted by the news and media...
There are several ways in which the media might cause crime deviance, including: Imitation- by providing deviant role models, resulting in copycat behaviour. Arousal, e.g. through violent imagery Desensitisation through repeated viewing of violence Transmitting...
The media may cause crime and deviance by creating a moral panic. The media identify a group as a folk devil or a threat to societies values. The media negatively stereotype the group and exaggerate the problem. Moral entrepreneurs (editors, politicians) condemn the...
Thomas and Loader define cybercrime as computer mediated activities that are illegal and are conducted through global electronic networks. Jewkes notes that the internet creates opportunities to commit both conventional crimes (fraud) and new crimes using new tools...
Nation states and large corporations have the power to inflict serious damage onto citizens, other countries and the environment. Yet often, these go unrevealed or unpunished. Some of these behaviours take us beyond the boundaries of traditional criminology into...
As globalisation creates new criminal opportunities, it is also giving rise to new forms of criminal organisations: ‘Glocal’ organisation Crime is locally based but with global connections. Hobbs and Dunningham found that although crimes have global links (drug...
Right realism sees crime as a growing problem. Right realists believe other theories have failed to solve the problem of crime. They regard the labelling theory and critical criminology and too sympathetic to the criminal and hostile to the police and courts. They are...
Green and state crimes are examples of transgressive sociology/criminology. Green crime should be a global concerned which was argued by Halsey. He said we should move the focus away from law breaking to a broader discussion regarding activities which harm humans...
Lea and Young argue that ethnic differences in the statistics reflect real differences in the levels of offending. They see crime as the product of relative deprivation, subcultures and marginalisation. Racism has led to the marginalisation and economic exclusion of...
Green and Ward define state crime as ‘illegal or deviant activities perpetrated by or with the complicity of state agencies.’ McLaughlin identifies 4 categories of state crime; political, economic, social/cultural crimes by security and police forces. The scale of...
Most crime appears to be committed by males (4/5). Among offenders, a higher proportion of females are convicted of property offences, while a higher proportion of males are convicted of violent or sexual offences. Males are more likely to commit serious crimes. Do...
Parsons functionalist explanation focuses on gender socialisation and role models in the nuclear family to explain gender differences in crime. Women perform the expressive role at home, including responsibility for socialisation. This gives girls an adult role model,...
Carlen Studied 39 WC women who had been convicted for a range of crimes. 20 were in prison or youth custody. Carlen argues that most convicted serious female criminals were WC. Hirschi Control Theory Hirschi argues that humans act rationally and are controlled by...
There is evidence that there has been no change in women’s involvement in violent crime: In the USA, sociologists found the increase in the official statistics was not matched by the finding of victim surveys or self-report studies. Net Widening- they argue that the...
C&O agree with Merton that WC youths are denied legitimate opportunities to achieve and their deviance stems from their response to this. But they note that not everyone adapts to a lack of legitimate opportunities by turning to ‘innovation; Some subcultures...
For labelling theorists, no act is deviant in itself: deviance is simply a social construct. According to Becker, social groups create deviance by creating rules and applying them to particular people whom they believe is an outsider. Thus an act of a person only...
Labelling theorists are also interested in the effects of labelling. Lemert argues that by labelling certain people as deviant, society actually encourages them to become more so; societal reaction causes secondary deviance. Primary and Secondary deviance Primary...
Douglas: the meaning of suicide He argues that to understand suicide, we must discover its meaning for the deceased. He rejects the use of official suicide statistics as they are a social construct that tell us about the labels applied by coroners. To discover the...
Official statistics show that working class are more likely than higher class to offend. Different perspectives offer different explanations for this. Functionalism see crime as the product of inadequate socialisation into a shared culture. Miller argues that the WC...
Marxists agree that the law is enforced mainly against the WC and that official statistics are flawed. However, they criticise the labelling theory for ignoring the structure of capitalism within which law making, enforcement and offending take place. Marxists...
Taylor, Walton and Young agree with traditional Marxists that capitalism is based on exploitation and inequality, the state makes and enforces laws in interests of capitalism and capitalism should be replaced by a classless society, all which will hugely reduce crime...
Sutherland- White collar crime is crime committed by a person of respectability and high status in the course of his occupation. This can lead to occupational crime which is crime committed by employees for personal gain and corporate crime which is crime committed...
Strain theory if a company cannot achieve its goal of maximising profits through legitimate means, it will turn to illegitimate means instead. Clinard and Yeager found companies law violations increase as their profit declined. Differential association Sutherland sees...
Realist theories differ from labelling theory and critical criminology, which see crime as socially constructed, rather than a real fact. Realists see crime as a real problem, especially for its victims and they propose policies to reduce crime Right Realists share a...
Functionalist’s see society as a stable system based on value consensus- shared norms and values, beliefs and goals. This produces social solidarity, binding individuals together into a harmonious unit. To achieve this, society has two key mechanisms: Socialisation:...
Merton argues that people engage in deviant behaviour when they cannot achieve socially approves goals by legitimate means. His explanation combines structural factors and cultural factors. The American Dream For Merton, deviance is the result of the strain between...
Cohen agrees that deviance results from WC inability to achieve mainstream goes by legitimate means. He criticises Merton’s explanation: Merton sees deviance as an individual response to strain, ignoring the group deviance of delinquent subcultures. Merton also...