How can crime and deviance be explained?

Theoretical views of crime and deviance

Functionalism

Functionalists argue that crime and deviance can only be explained by looking at the way societies are organised socially — their social structures — and that crime is caused by society rather than being the product of evil or the circumstances of the individual.

Functionalism is, therefore, a structuralist theory of crime.

One of the key aspects of functionalism is that the effect of things on individuals is not thought to be as important as the effect on society.

So even behaviour which seems deviant and harmful to particular individuals may still be functional for society as a whole, if it serves a collective purpose.

Durkheim

Émile Durkheim believed that, in pre-industrial societies, crime was fairly rare because family and religion were powerful agencies of socialisation and social control.

These agencies ensured that individuals conformed to a value consensus which reflected the interests of the whole community.

Any deviance from this consensus would be subject to severe punishment, for example exile or death.
However, Durkheim argued that industrialisation resulted in widespread urbanisation and the gradual tolerance of new ways of thinking, especially scientific and rational explanations of how the world worked.

Durkheim believed that the complexity of modern industrial life had the effect of undermining the authority of religion and the family.

He claimed that, as a result, consensus, community, social controls and punishments were weaker in modern societies, and people were more likely to experience moral uncertainty and confusion — he called this ‘anomie’ — about how they should behave, therefore increasing the potential for both crime and deviance.

The founder of functionalism, Emile Durkheim, saw crime as an integral part of a healthy society. He also felt that some crime and deviance was inevitable – a society would always have some deviance as people test the boundaries.

For example, in a society with no other deviance (‘a society of saints’), behaviour like sneezing or burping could become criminalised.

Value consensus, the majority in society sharing the same norms and values, is very important for society to function effectively and for social order to be maintained.

If too many people do not learn these values, or have different values, it will leave society in a state of chaos, or ‘normlessness’, where there are no agreed rules.

Durkheim called this a state of ‘anomie’ and thought it was a very damaging thing for society. This is why socialisation is so important for functionalists: to ensure that everyone learns the same norms and values, thus preventing anomie

However, Durkheim observed that crime was present in most societies and consequently speculated that it must perform positive functions which benefit society, for example the following:

Some crimes can provoke positive social change by highlighting aspects of social life or the law that are unjust.

For example, the suffragette movement deliberately broke the law in order to highlight gender inequalities in the early twentieth century.

The activities of these functional rebels eventually resulted in women being given the vote.

Some crimes such as terrorist attacks or the murder of children create such public outrage that they reinforce and reinvigorate both consensus and community solidarity.
The pursuit, trial and punishment of wrongdoers function to maintain the boundaries between good citizens and criminals because society is reminded that failure to follow social rules will not be tolerated

However, Durkheim never explained why particular social groups commit crime in the first place or why particular groups who do, get away with it.

Critics point out that many crimes are actually dysfunctional, that is, they have negative consequences for both individuals and societies.

Marxists also argue that Durkheim over-focused on consensus to the extent that he underestimated the level of conflict and inequality in modern societies, which in itself may be a cause of crime

Anomie

For Durkheim and functionalists, a small amount of crime and deviance can prevent anomie, as long as it is punished.

However, if a society allows too much crime and deviance without punishment, or if for some reason the value consensus breaks down (maybe if change in norms and values happens too quickly), this could result in a breakdown of social order and lead to a state of anomie, which threatens the stability of the whole society.

In each of the following examples, as normal order is suddenly removed and a state of anomie prevails, there may be an initial rise in deviance and criminality such as looting, violence and suicides:

If there is a sudden change of government (a revolution, a coup or an uprising). For example: in Russia after Communism collapsed; in South Africa after the end of apartheid; and in Iraq after Saddam Hussein was removed.
If there is a disaster which leads to the destruction of order.

For example, in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina or in New York after 9/11.

If there is a major economic upheaval.

For example, after the Wall Street Crash in 1929, or the more recent banking meltdown in 2008.
Deviance as a ‘safety valve’

An additional function of deviance, suggested by some functionalists, is that it can act as a ‘safety valve’ – allowing an individual or group to ‘let off steam’ to prevent worse deviance. Davis’ study of prostitution (1961) suggests that the goals of sexual behaviour in men are not inherently social, but that societies need to restrict the morally acceptable expression of sexuality to the family context to promote the bearing and raising children.

This can lead to a conflict for many men which may lead to promiscuity or even rape.

Davis thus argues that prostitution, far from being damaging to society, is providing a ‘safe’ outlet for these sexual tensions in a way which is less threatening to the family.

Evaluating Durkheim

Durkheim was the first sociologist to consider crime and deviance, and to look at its effects on society.

His ideas about the balance between a functional and an anomic society have been very influential, and can be applied to real life examples.

However, he did not explain why individuals actually commit crime

So although Durkheim explains why we need deviance, he doesn‘t explain:

why it happens,
why some people do it more than others, or
why different people are deviant in different ways.

Also, Durkheim doesn’t consider the negative effects of deviance on individuals, such as victims of crime, or issues such as who creates the law, or who has power to evade the law – Marxists would challenge this.

Promoting social solidarity: bringing together ‘upright consciences’

Social solidarity refers to the sense of cohesion felt in society – all the members of a society feeling part of the whole.

Certain events in a society which bring people together can be seen as promoting social solidarity.

Examples would include national events such as royal weddings or births, sporting events such as the football World Cup or the Olympics, and also smaller scale events such as graduation ceremonies or family celebrations.

Durkheim argued that crime is one of these events.

He wrote that ‘crime brings together upright consciences’ and discussed the example of shared outrage about a scandal in a small town, which will lead to the expressing of a ‘public temper’, (Durkheim, 1960), thus promoting social solidarity – everyone is outraged together.

The idea that all members of a community share a set of values, ideas of right and wrong, is referred to as the ‘collective conscience’.

This will lead a community to police itself, using sanctions to ensure that anyone who steps out of line knows it is wrong.

The collective conscience may be expressed through the shared sense of shock, outrage, horror, anger, fear, or grief that the public demonstrate after hearing about certain events. Examples may include reactions to war, natural disasters or other emergencies or tragedies, but also reactions to a deviant or criminal act by a member of society.
Boundary maintenance and the promotion of social change

Members of any society or community must learn the boundaries of what is acceptable behaviour within that group.

Crime and deviance facilitate this by showing members of society where the boundaries of right and wrong are, through publicly condemning and punishing those who stray beyond these boundaries.

To ensure that this function of deviance is carried out, any deviance must be identified and punished. Such punishment will involve the agencies of social control – those institutions which identify and publicise deviance, and control it through the application of sanctions
Wayward Puritans, Erikson (1966)

Erikson argues that members of a community will participate in confrontations with a deviant person who transgresses the community’s boundaries.

These confrontations may take the form of ‘public degradation ceremonies’.

These can range from public trials to the media coverage of crime.

He notes that the decline of the very public punishment of deviants, in the form of public floggings or hangings, for example, happened at the same time as the development of newspapers, which took on a similar function.

Subsequently, radio and television also took on this role of public condemnation, and today social media such as Twitter performs a similar role.

Boundaries are always shifting according to Erikson, and changes may occur which can be demonstrated through the relaxation of certain public reactions to previously ‘deviant’ behaviour.

Thus another function of deviance, and societal reaction to it, can seen as helping society to progress by showing when a new value consensus is emerging.

An example of this could be the changing attitude towards homosexuality in the UK.

A change in the publicly expressed view towards homosexuality has led to a fairly swift shift from it being a criminal offence at the beginning of the twentieth century, to continued unequal treatment in terms of age of consent (which was not equalised until 2000), through to the introduction of gay marriage in 2014.
Merton

An American functionalist, Robert Merton, argued that the cause of crime lies in the relationship between the culture and the social structure or organisation of society.

His ideas of anomie and the ‘strain’ that modern society’s goals can create have influenced many other sociologists who would not all be seen as functionalists.

Merton argues that there are clear, culturally defined goals in any social structure, and there are also clearly defined means to achieve these goals, which are designed to regulate the behaviour of society’s members.

Crime and deviance occur when the goals are emphasised more than the acceptable means.

If alternative means to achieve the goal become more accessible, acceptable and even preferred by significant numbers in society, then anomie will occur.

Thus Merton argues that in some societies there is a ‘strain towards anomie’, as the goal becomes more important than the means.

He uses sport as an example: if the culture develops wherein winning is more important than fair play and sticking to the rules, then winning by any means becomes acceptable.

American culture provides Merton with a clear example of this strain, where the goal of success, and particularly money, has become entrenched and Americans are continually pressured to find ways of becoming financially successful and making more money.

However, crucially, Merton argues that there is not as much emphasis on the legitimate ways to achieve the goal of success as there is on the goal itself.

Merton accepted that those lower down in society would have restricted goals,but even so, the socially acceptable channels do not always allow individuals to achieve success and are not sufficiently enforced.

In these circumstances, individuals may turn to other means of achieving success, or lose faith in the system entirely.

In capitalist societies, cultural institutions, such as the mass media, socialise individuals into believing that material success is a realistic goal.

Functionalists Davis and Moore argued that many Western societies were meritocratic — this means that they test people’s talent, skill and effort via objective examinations and reward success with qualifications, jobs, high salaries and upward social mobility.

Davis and Moore argued that such societies were fair because people only got ahead on merit. However, Merton was critical of the idea that societies such as the USA were meritocratic.

He argued that the resources and opportunities provided by the social structure of societies are not fairly distributed because the means of achieving the goal of material success — education and jobs — are not fairly distributed and consequently some social groups experience greater advantages than others.

In other words, the playing field was far from level.

Merton therefore argues that the causes of crime in the USA lie in the apparent strain or mismatch between the cultural goals set by powerful ideas such as the American dream (which is transmitted by parents to their children, schools and the mass media) and the legitimate institutional means (education and work) of achieving those goals.

The fact that these institutional means are dominated by privileged groups means that many talented members of society have their opportunity to make it to the top blocked

Merton refers to the strain between goals and means as ‘anomie’ and argues that it results in a large section of a population becoming disillusioned, frustrated, disaffected and potentially criminal.

Modes of adaptation

Merton argued that there were five different responses to goal of success, or ‘modes of adaptation’

In fact, Merton identifies five possible responses to anomie

This is the majority response.

People continue to strive towards the goal of material success by going to work and therefore conform to the social rules

will be the most common response to society’s goals in a stable society.

Thus most people in America will work hard at school and in their job, to make as much money as they can in legitimate ways

Innovators are people who realise that material success is unlikely to be achieved through legitimate means such as going to work every day.

will occur when an individual has internalised the goal but has not fully internalised the acceptable means of achieving this.

They therefore choose to adopt illegitimate means, that is, criminal means, in order to achieve the American dream.

For example, American gangsters such as Lucky Luciano and Al Capone are good examples of innovators.

Merton observes that gangsters are not that different to law-abiding citizens.

They share the same cultural goal pushed by cultural agencies such as the media — to achieve material success.

Merton argues that this can occur amongst middle class individuals, who are prepared to ‘bend’ the rules to make more money.

However, it is those in the working class, who find the goal of success to be incompatible with their educational and employment opportunities, who are most likely to innovate, through criminal or deviant behaviour, to achieve success

Ritualists are people who have given up on the goal of material success but seek solace and satisfaction by immersing themselves in their jobs.

it is clearly unrealistic for many to continually strive for great wealth, thus the ritualist abandons, or at least scales down, the goal – lowering aspirations to achieve an equilibrium.

Others may judge such a person as lacking ambition, or being ‘stuck in a rut’, thus they can be seen as deviant in a society of achievers

Retreatists have abandoned both conventional goals and means and retreated from mainstream society altogether by becoming dependent on drugs or drink, by deliberately becoming homeless or by committing suicide.

those who struggle to achieve success may end up dropping out of the society which judges them and become retreatists.

This may involve not working but also not participating in ‘normal’ life at all – often rejecting family and friends and pursuing self-destructive deviant behaviour

Rebels reject the mainstream goal of material success and the normal means of achieving this because they believe such goals and means to be politically or morally wrong.

Rebels usually want to tear down the existing system, often through violent revolution or the use of terror tactics, and replace it with their own.

the rebel may reject society’s goals but replace them with alternatives, joining an organised movement which seeks a different type of society entirely, or which campaigns for a different cause.
Merton has been challenged for his assumption that the goal of financial success is universal in the USA. It could be argued that there may be many other goals (such as family and love) and many other reasons to display deviant behaviour.

An individual may fall into several categories in different aspects of their life, for example, a bank manager, who is also a football hooligan

Despite such criticisms, Merton’s Strain Theory was very influential as a theory of crime which recognises that when an individual experiences strain or stress, crime is one potential response to this strain.

This has been developed by subcultural theorists, with the key difference that whilst Merton focused on an individual’s response to strain, subcultural theorists tend to see deviance as a collective response, in the context of a subculture

Merton’s theory was very influential and has influenced other important theories such as Cohen’s theory of juvenile delinquency and Cashmore’s theory of why black youth commit crime.

Sumner claims that Merton has uncovered the main cause of crime in modern societies — the alienation caused by disillusion with the impossible goals set by capitalism.

However, there are several criticisms of Merton.

He does not explain why some individuals innovate by committing crime, yet others conform, retreat or rebel.
He explains crime that results in economic gain because he sees this as originating in the dominant cultural goal of material success.

However, many types of crime, especially violent and sexual crimes, are not motivated by money.

He fails to explain crimes committed by young people in gangs, who are more likely to be motivated by a search for excitement or peer pressure or status rather than material goals.
He only explains crimes committed by poorer sections of society.

His explanation of blocked opportunities fails to explain white-collar, corporate and state crimes.

Merton fails to ask who benefits from the capitalist system and especially the laws that underpin it

Marxism

Unlike Functionalists, Marxists do not agree that crime and deviance function for the whole society.

They argue that it is the powerful who benefit. Marxists look at issues such as the types of laws which are passed and enforced, and who benefits from these laws.

Some Marxists also look at the way in which the capitalist system drives people to crime. Another key area of study is crimes of the powerful, including white-collar and corporate crime
Marxism, ideology and social control

Marxists focus of the concept of ideology: a system of ideas and beliefs.

The dominant ideology in society comprises the ideas which suit the powerful and their interests, and make sure the powerless stay in their place.

This ‘capitalist ideology’ is presented as ‘fact’ and makes up our reality, so everyone in society accepts these ideas, and fails to question whether they are true, or represent our interests. Being socialised or ‘brainwashed’ into capitalist ideology is a major way in which the proletariat are controlled by the bourgeoisie.

Althusser (1970) argues that control of the proletariat is maintained through two sets of institutions.

The Repressive State Apparatus (RSA) directly and obviously controls the proletariat, and comprises the government, the armed forces, the police and the criminal justice system – the formal mechanism of social control.

The Ideological State Apparatuses (ISAs) control us more subtly, by socialising us into accepting the capitalist ideology.

Examples of ISAs include the family, the media, education and religion – the informal mechanisms of social control.

Althusser notes that whereas the RSA functions by violence, the ISAs function by ideology – and no class can hold power over a long period without exercising ideological control.

These ideas can be applied to crime and deviance: the ISAs are used to show us those who are ‘deviant’, as a warning, and also to divide us, keep us scared and therefore to justify the use of the RSA.

Althusser (1970) argues that control of the proletariat is maintained through the repressive state apparatus (RSA), which directly and obviously controls the proletariat through violence or the threat of violence, and the ideological state apparatuses (ISAs), which control us more subtly, by socialising us into accepting the capitalist ideology.

The RSA comprises the government, the armed forces, the police and the criminal justice system, whereas examples of ISAs include the family, the media, education and religion. Althusser argues that the ISAs are important because no class can hold power over a long period without exercising ideological control, since violent repression breeds resentment and opposition.

The RSA and ISA function in the interests of the capitalist class to maintain and legitimate class inequality in the following ways:

They are concerned mainly with protecting the major priorities of capitalism — wealth, private property and profit. Snider notes that the capitalist state is reluctant to pass laws that regulate the activities of businesses or threaten their profitability.
Box notes that the powerful kill, injure, maim and steal from ordinary members of society but these killings, injuries and thefts are often not covered by the law.

For example, a worker’s death due to employer infringements of health and safety laws is a civil, rather than criminal offence.

The examples of theft and murder are used by Box (1983) to illustrate how the concept of ‘crime’ is socially constructed by the powerful.

Murder can be seen as ‘avoidable killing’, but there are many avoidable killings which do not get classified as murder.

Box notes that ‘we are encouraged to see murder as a particular act involving a very limited range of stereotypical actors, instruments, situations, and motives.

Other types of avoidable killing are either defined as a less serious crime than murder, or as matters more appropriate for administrative or civil proceedings…’

The people who commit legally defined murder are usually poorer and less powerful than those who commit other ‘avoidable killing’.

Examples of ‘avoidable killing’ which are not constructed as ‘murder’ include deaths resulting from employers’ acts of negligence or failure to give priority to environmental or health and safety risks, and from manufacturers’ decisions not to properly test or recall dangerous products based on cost calculations.

The Marxist analysis of society is focused on how the capitalist economic system generally benefits the capitalist ruling class at the expense of the majority of the population.

Marxists also argue that the nature and organisation of capitalism creates the potential for criminal behaviour in all social classes.

This can be illustrated in two ways.

First, Gordon argues that the population of capitalist societies is socialised into a set of capitalist values that includes competition, individualism, materialism, conspicuous consumption, selfishness and greed, and that these values are criminogenic, meaning that they encourage criminal behaviour among rich and poor alike.

He also argues that the profit motive encourages a culture of greed and self-interest.

The need to win at all costs or go out of business, as well as the desire for self-enrichment, encourage capitalists to commit white-collar and corporate crimes such as tax evasion.

Second, Gordon argues that capitalism is characterised by class inequalities in the distribution of, for example, wealth and income, poverty, unemployment and homelessness.

He suggests that most crime committed by poorer sections of society is a realistic and rational response to these inequalities.

Capitalism also encourages a ‘culture of envy’ because poorer sections of society are bombarded with representations of wealth by the mass media and this may also encourage criminality as the alienated poor want what better-off groups take for granted

Law enforcement is selective and tends to favour the rich and powerful.

In particular, white-collar and corporate crimes are under-policed and under-punished.

For example, social security fraud, largely committed by the poor, inevitably attracts prosecution and often prison, yet tax fraudsters, who are usually wealthy and powerful individuals or corporations rather than ordinary taxpayers, rarely get taken to court.

Reiman argues that the more likely a crime is to be committed by higher-class people, the less likely it is to be treated as a criminal offence
– Law enforcement is selective and tends to favour the rich and powerful.

In particular, white-collar and corporate crimes are under-policed and under-punished.

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

Marxists are particularly interested in the white-collar and corporate crimes committed by the powerful.

White-collar crime refers to crime committed in the course of legitimate employment, usually by people with power within an organisation, for example managers, accountants etc., who are able to use their occupational role to evade detection.

Fraud, accounting offences, tax evasion, insider dealing and computer crime are typical white-collar crimes.

Corporate crime involves high-ranking officials who own or manage companies carrying out illegal or morally suspect activities to enhance the profits of the company.

This may indirectly benefit those individuals, in that increased profits will probably result in increased financial rewards for those who run the companies.

These are not minor offences.

For example, in 2006–07, 241 workers in the UK were killed in avoidable accidents at work.

In the same period, 90 members of the general public also died as a direct result of health and safety infringements.

Moreover, the financial costs to society of white-collar and corporate crimes are at least 24 times greater than the cost of working-class street crime, according to Thio.

However, Croall observes that white-collar and corporate crime are rarely reported, detected and prosecuted.

Crime is generally seen by the authorities, the media and the general public as a working-class problem rather than a middle-class or upper-class problem.

She suggests that this is because crimes of the powerful generally tend to be:

indirect — offenders and victims rarely come into contact with one another
largely invisible — people often don’t realise they have been a victim of a corporate crime such as price-fi xing
complex — corporate crime often involves the abuse of complex technical, financial or scientific knowledge and is therefore beyond the comprehension of most people
less feared — because it is invisible, indirect and complex
morally ambiguous — some crimes, particularly tax evasion, may be admired and tolerated by the general public because nobody likes paying tax

Moreover, Croall observes that it is difficult to decide where the blame lies for corporate crimes.

Power, crime and mystification, Stephen Box (1983)

Box (1983) directly links crime to social control.

He argues that the official crime statistics are socially constructed and manipulated to criminalise the powerless.

The idea that most criminals are working class and that crime is increasing are part of the capitalist ideology.

This is used to scare us and to justify more control.

We are encouraged to believe that there is a crime problem, and this justifies an increase in policing and surveillance, greater powers of punishment and more prison places.

The result of these controls seems to be an even higher crime rate, creating a culture of fear. The ‘criminals’ we are encouraged to fear are the typical criminals presented in the official crime statistics: young, male, working class and black.

Like other Marxists, Box accepts that this may have some truth, because these tend to be groups more affected by material deprivation and social exclusion, giving them more reasons to commit crime.

He also accepts that controlling crime which harms ordinary individuals is desirable.

However, Box argues that the whole idea of a ‘crime problem’ is part of the ideology of the powerful – an illusion to justify more control of those seen as a threat to the Capitalist system. This illusion also diverts our attention from the really serious crimes – those that cause avoidable deaths, injuries and deprivation.

For Box, the criminal law is a set of ideological constructs – tools and instruments designed to criminalise ‘… problem populations perceived by the powerful to be potentially or actually threatening the existing distribution of power, wealth and privilege’.

The real ‘criminals’ are the powerful themselves.

They tell us criminals are evil, and crimes are committed by mentally unstable and uneducated working class people.

This helps to disguise the fact that the powerful create the conditions for the offending of the powerless, and that the powerful are actually causing more harm in society than the so-called ‘criminal classes’.

Capitalism, alienation and criminality

Alienation is a concept used by Marx to describe the sense of powerlessness, lack of control and disconnectedness felt by the proletariat created by exploitation at work and capitalism. Marxists argue that alienation and the competitive conditions created by capitalism can drive people to criminality.

There is a causal link between crime and economic conditions according to Bonger (1916). Much crime is caused by poverty; hence during times of economic depression, crime rates amongst the poorer sections of society increase.

Those living in poor conditions and in competition with one another for scarce resources will be driven to criminality.

Moreover, capitalism creates a climate of competition and inequality, due to an unequal distribution of resources.

This promotes greed and individualism, rather than the co-operation and selflessness which may be found in more primitive societies.

Materialism, false needs, racism, and the false masculinity of violence and domination are all related symptoms of the capitalist system.

Thus capitalism directly creates crime due to desperation, but indirectly it also contributes to an increasing a sense of alienation and brutality, which leads to a further increase in crime.

Like other Marxists, Gordon (1973) argues that the focus of public fear, and governmental control, is on ‘urban’ or ‘violent’ crimes, with little attention being given to white-collar crimes, despite the harm that they do.

He also points out that given the prevalence of crime in the USA, criminal behaviour seems to be the norm, rather than an aberration, citing a 1961 survey which found that 91 per cent of Americans admitted that they had committed acts for which they may receive custodial sentences.

However, Gordon goes on to argue that crime is usually a rational response to the situations people find themselves in, and that capitalism, with its focus on competition for resources and inequality, creates the conditions in which crime is carried out.

He uses the example of ‘ghetto crime’ in poor neighbourhoods, pointing out that legitimate jobs available to residents are insecure, low paid and often demeaning.

In this context, criminality amongst the poor can be seen as a rational response to their situation.

He links this to other criminality, such as corporate crime, and argues that the same analysis is true – in a competitive capitalist economy, corporate criminality as an attempt to maximise profits and beat the competition is perfectly rational.
In his review of the Marxist approach to crime, Chambliss (1975) summarises several points made by different Marxist criminologists.

He argues that the structure of capitalism creates both the desire to consume and, for most, the inability to earn enough money to meet these consumption desires, highlighting a contradiction which can explain the lure of criminality.

He points out that Marx himself recognised that crime takes some of the proletariat off the streets through incarceration, and employs another section of society in the control of criminality, reducing surplus labour.

Chambliss also reiterates that criminal acts are located throughout the social class spectrum, but it is the enforcement of the criminal law which leads to the appearance that criminality is concentrated in the lower classes.

The form which the criminality takes is directly related to the position and opportunities which relate to the individual: ‘… the drinking of the skidrow resident, the violence of the ghetto resident, the drug use of the middle class adolescent and the white-collar crimes of corporation executives …’.

Evaluation of Marxist criminology

Traditional Marxist criminology has been criticised for largely ignoring the relationship between crime and important non-class variables such as ethnicity and gender.

It sees all laws as representing ruling-class interests and consequently ignores the fact that the law also protects the interests of vulnerable groups such as children, women and ethnic minorities.

Marxism also fails to explain why the criminal justice system has successfully prosecuted some powerful individuals and companies.

Marxists are often accused of being too extreme.

It is possibly far-fetched to argue that the ruling class are all involved in a deliberate conspiracy to control and criminalise the lower classes.

However, Marxists argue that even if it is not a deliberate conspiracy, the dominance of the powerful and their ideology operate in ways which benefit them and disadvantage the powerless.

Critics also cite examples of laws which do protect the rights of the powerless, such as laws against murder, theft and rape, but also health and safety regulations and human rights laws. However, as Box argues above, such laws are often framed and enforced selectively, and so still operate to advantage the powerful.

The argument from writers such as Bonger and Gordon, that capitalism creates crime, can be challenged by the point that most people obey the law, suggesting a value consensus. However, the selective enforcement of the law noted by Marxists suggests that crime is actually much more widespread than it appears. T

his is an idea taken up by neo-Marxists

Neo-Marxist or radical criminology

Neo-Marxists are critical of traditional Marxist ideas on crime, especially the idea that the working class is driven to crime by factors beyond its control such as poverty, inequality or criminogenic values.

Interactionism and Marxism both suggest that criminality occurs throughout the social structure, but that those from the lower classes, and with less power, are more likely to be identified as criminals and arrested, charged and convicted.

However, whilst interactionists focus on the process by which an individual comes to be labelled as deviant and its affect on their subsequent behaviour, Marxists look more at the reasons behind the inequality, and in whose interests the criminal justice system operates. Radical criminologists, who can be seen as a form of neo-Marxism, tend to combine these approaches.

Neo-Marxists are influenced by social action theory, in that they believe that people interpret the world around them and choose to behave in certain ways.

Criminality, therefore, is a deliberate choice — it is usually the result of the ‘criminal’ interpreting their experience of inequality or capitalism and deciding that what they have experienced is ‘unjust’ or in need of change

Neo-Marxists such as Taylor, Walton and Young argued that the action that derives from this interpretation is a political action.

Neo-Marxists, therefore, argue that criminals are revolutionaries struggling to alter capitalist society for the better.

Moreover, they argue that the ruling class is aware of this threat and seeks to contain it by:

introducing draconian laws to control the potentially troublesome working-class and ethnic minority population
intensively policing working-class areas so that the police resemble an army of occupation in some areas
creating moral panics that aim to divide and rule the working class by convincing white working-class people that they have more to fear from immigrants, asylum seekers, Muslims and black crime than they do from those who run society

Birmingham University’s Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies (CCCS) produced much neo-Marxist analysis of deviant youth subcultures in the 1970s and 80s.

Sociologists such as Hall and Jefferson (1976), P. Cohen and Hebdige produced accounts of ‘spectacular’ youth subcultures including teddyboys, mods, skinheads and punks.

They focused on issues such as identity, style and societal reactions, whilst recognising the significance of the socio-economic conditions in which the youths were growing up.

The CCCS studies argued that the attitudes and styles of each subculture could be seen as expressions of resistance against capitalist society and the class inequalities affecting their lives.

Policing the Crisis, Hall et al (1978)

Hall et al’s analysis utilises interactionist ideas on societal reaction to certain forms of deviance, such as labelling and the creation of moral panics, but it places this within the wider context of the social and economic conditions of the time.

The study recounts the moral panic about mugging in the 1970s.

The term ‘mugging’ was first used by the British media in 1972, having previously only been used in America.

Mugging does not actually exist as a crime – robbery would be the closest actual offence – and media coverage often quoted statistical increases which were impossible to verify given the lack of clarity about which crimes actually constituted ‘muggings’.

However, the term quickly entered the nation’s vocabulary and, due to the focus of some of the early stories, it came to be associated with Black males. Rather than attempting to explain mugging itself, Hall et al are concerned with why British society reacted to mugging in such an extreme way, and at that precise time.

They argue that crime, and the reaction to it, must be put into its historical and societal context if it is to be fully understood.

In the early 1970s Britain was experiencing an economic crisis, with high unemployment and a squeeze on wages.

The conditions were creating unrest – there were strikes, student protests and widespread discontent, particularly in the inner cities.

This affected the ability of the ruling class to govern by consent.

They had to use force to control the crisis, clamping down hard on dissenters.

Crime became the focus, justifying tougher policing.

At the same time, racial tensions were stirred up in urban communities, as competition for jobs and resources was linked to immigration by some politicians.

In this context, the hard-line reactions of the police and the courts to cases of mugging, coupled with sensationalist media reporting, created a moral panic and made a link between race and crime.

Hall et al argue that the ‘black mugger’ served as a scapegoat for the social problems of the day, and provided a distraction from the economic worries.

At the same time tougher policing and control was justified and accepted by the public at large

This combination of structure and action is developed more explicitly in The New Criminology by Taylor, Walton and Young (1972), in which they put forward a ‘radical theory of crime’.

They argue that a ‘fully social theory of deviance’ must consider the structure of capitalist society – the way it operates to the benefit of the ruling class – and at the individuals involved in social deviance – offenders, police, magistrates and judges – to consider how they interpret behaviour and actions.

A full social theory of deviance requires a Marxist understanding of the distribution of power in society, considering:

the circumstances surrounding an individual’s choice to commit a deviant act,
the meaning of the act for the individual and
any effects caused by societal reactions, including labelling and deviance amplification.

Like the CCCS, Taylor, Walton and Young suggest that an individual’s class position, and the feelings of frustration this may create, may lead to the desire to resist and fight back against the capitalist system.

The view of crime as a form of resistance has also been developed by Gilroy in relation to black criminality

It is a source of criticism however, particularly from left realists, who call it a ‘Robin Hood’ thesis.

They point out that most working class criminals commit crimes against other working class people, not as an act of rebellion against the capitalist state.

However, resistance need not be a conscious act, but rather a result of anger and frustration that may end up being channelled into violence and other crime.

Young became a key figure within left realism, and despite the above criticism, there are clear links between the two approaches.

Another radical study of crime produced by the CCCS which is influenced by this radical approach is Hall et al’s Policing the Crisis.

By combining approaches drawn from both Marxism and interactionism, radical criminology opened up new perspectives in understanding crime and deviance.

It was closely followed by another new approach, realism, which also drew on some older ideas but updated and adapted them to explain contemporary criminality

The Saints and the Roughnecks, William Chambliss (1973)

Though generally seen as Marxist, in his observational study of two high school gangs, Chambliss identifies the differences in public perception of the boys’ deviant behaviour, and how social class impacts on labelling and self-concept.

‘The Saints’ were eight young men from white upper-middle class families. They were constantly involved in deviant behaviour, including truancy, drinking and vandalism. Yet not one was officially arrested during the two year study.

In contrast, another gang at the school, ‘The Roughnecks’, six boys from lower-class backgrounds, were constantly in trouble with police and community even though their rate of delinquency was similar.

The Saints were able to utilise their status and ‘good reputation’ in the school to negotiate their way out of classes, cheat on homework and tests, and gain higher grades that they deserved. They chose the sites of their weekend delinquency carefully, where they would not be recognised.

In contrast, The Roughnecks were perceived as typical gang members, and subject to more community vigilance.

The police were aware of their delinquency and looked for opportunities to arrest them.

Chambliss concludes that ‘selective perception and labelling … means that visible, poor, non-mobile, outspoken, undiplomatic “tough” kids will be noticed, whether their actions are seriously delinquent or not.

Other kids, who have established a reputation for being bright, disciplined and involved in respectable activities, who are mobile and monied, will be invisible when they deviate from sanctioned activities.

Evaluation of neo-Marxism

However, neo-Marxism has been criticised because while the political motives for demonstrations, riots, assassinations and terrorism can be seen, it is clearly nonsensical to suggest that crimes against the vulnerable can be explained using political justifications.

The neo-Marxist theory also implies that ordinary criminals possess a political consciousness which underpins each decision to commit crime — although this is highly unlikely because most crime is opportunistic.

Interactionism

Interactionism (which incorporates labelling theory) is an interpretivist theory of crime, which means it is interested in how people interpret the world around them and, in particular, how they interact with others.

Interactionists reject the functionalist idea of value consensus, particularly with regard to what counts as normality or deviance.

Interactionists reject the idea that crime statistics are a realistic reflection of criminal activity. They argue instead that they are the result of a series of assumptions and judgements made by agencies of social control (such as the police).

This means that instead of seeking to explain why those with the social characteristics of a ‘typical criminal’ are more prone to commit crime, interactionists are interested in exploring how and why particular groups or individuals come to be defined as criminal or deviant in the first place, and how this definition affects their future actions

Interactionists observe that these concepts are relative — they mean different things to different people and groups.

Furthermore, definitions of normality or deviance often differ according to social context historical period and culture.

Becker claims that deviance is in the eye of the beholder because an act only becomes deviant when it is interpreted by others with more power.

Becker claims that deviance is a social construction because it requires the activity of two groups — one group acts in a particular way and another with more power interprets and evaluates that activity as wrong or problematical.

This social reaction results in the labelling of the activity as illegal and the group as deviant or criminal.

Outsiders: Studies in the Sociology of deviance, Howard Becker (1966)

Becker argues that deviance is socially constructed: ‘Social groups create deviance by making rules whose infraction constitutes deviance, and by applying those rules to particular people and labelling them as outsiders … The deviant is one to whom the label has been successfully applied; deviant behaviour is behaviour that people so label.’

He suggests that people who have been labelled as deviant cannot be studied to try to reach an explanation of their deviance, since some of those may have been wrongly labelled, and others who are deviant may not have been labelled at all.

Becker is therefore ‘less concerned with the personal and social characteristics of deviants than with the process by which they come to be thought of as outsiders and their reactions to that judgement’.

He proposes that deviance is not a quality of some types of behaviour, but rather ‘the product of a process which involves responses of other people to the behaviour’
Becker argues that powerful groups socially construct deviance and criminality by making rules and laws — the breaking of these leads to the powerful imposing their interpretations of what is normal or deviant on society.

At a local level, parents and teachers make rules for young people but at a national or societal level, interactionists believe the economically and politically powerful decide on behalf of society what counts or does not count as criminal behaviour.

This social construction of law and therefore crime is sometimes motivated by some sort of social consensus.

As social values and morals evolve, the majority may feel that social change is required However, critical interactionists argue that most laws reflect the interests of the powerful rather than any value consensus.

Consequently, harms committed by multinational corporations and states may not be interpreted and hence defined as unlawful.

These activities may be deliberately excluded from the law.

Interactionists argue that the powerful often socially construct crime and deviance through other agents such as the mass media, the police and the judiciary.

The mass media socially construct moral panics which interpret and label the activities of less powerful groups, especially younger people, as deviant or criminal, thereby justifying stricter controls over them, for example in the form of new laws.
The police socially construct crime and by interpreting and labelling the activities of groups such as the working class and ethnic minority males as more criminal than other social groups, and then targeting and over-policing those groups
Hood found that the courts socially construct crime by interpreting and labelling crime committed by young African-Caribbeans as requiring greater punishment than the same crime committed by young whites.

Interactionism has also focused on the effects or consequences of labelling people as deviants or criminals.

Lemert distinguishes between primary deviance and secondary deviance

Lemert argues that secondary deviance is the more important type because it results in very negative consequences for those labelled as deviant or criminal.

He argues that a negative label can impose great psychological and social damage on an individual.

Master status and the self-fulfilling prophecy

Becker argued that the effects of the labelling process can be significant.

A deviant label contains an evaluation of the person to whom it is applied. It can become a ‘master status’ which colours all other statuses and roles possessed by the individual.

Others will respond to the individual in terms of the label and interpret any behaviours in relation to the label, and so the deviant identity becomes the controlling one for the individual

Lemert points out that deviant labels often become master statuses.

This means that when ordinary people interact with people who have been labelled as criminals or deviants the former judge the latter purely on the basis of the negative label rather than on their other statuses such as son, husband, father, friend and so on.

One of the consequences of this negative labelling is that the ‘deviant’ may be forced to seek the company of others who have been similarly labelled in order to experience normality.

This may lead to the development of a subculture of deviance, which increases the chances of a return to deviant ways of behaving

An important concept associated with labelling is the self-fulfilling prophecy.

When an individual is labelled and reacted to in a particular way, they are likely to internalise (take on board) that label and it will affect their self-concept.

They may then start to live up to the label, making decisions based on the deviant self-concept, which fulfil the assumption which has been made about them.

Once a deviant label becomes a master status, it may be difficult for the individual to remain unaffected – he or she may be isolated from others and judged differently.

This may mean that the individual will find it difficult to conform to many of society’s other rules, such as holding down a job or having a relationship, and thus the specific deviant becomes a general deviant.

Becker further argues that a ‘deviant career’ may be commenced when an individual joins a deviant group or subculture.

This group may rationalise, justify and support deviant identities and activities.

Thus the individual will be more likely to see themselves as deviant – internalising the label.

At this stage the ‘deviant identity’ becomes the controlling one – it will affect the individual’s choices, lifestyle and self-concept.

This notion of a deviant career is applied by Plummer (1996) to individuals who have been labelled as homosexual.

This label becomes a ‘master status’ and the individual may internalise the label and start to pursue a ‘homosexual career’, which may involve joining a homosexual subculture, frequenting gay venues and becoming more camp
Interactionists therefore conclude that labelling may result in a self-fulfilling prophecy.

The labelled person lives up to their master deviant status because they are not trusted by society and their resulting unemployment and poverty motivate more crime.

Interactionists also argue that labelling can result in deviancy amplification.

The original ‘deviance’ is amplified as the person labelled deviant reacts to the negative labelling by becoming even more deviant in symbolic protest.

The impact of public labelling

For Becker, behaviour only becomes deviant when it has been defined and labelled as such. He uses an example from anthropologist Malinowski (1966) to illustrate this point.

Like Becker, Lemert (1951) argues that societal reaction to behaviour is more significant than the behaviour itself.

Using the example of alcoholism, he suggests that the reasons for drinking are many and varied, and less significant than the processes by which the drinking is identified and becomes an active part of the individual’s identity.

Lemert uses the term ‘primary deviance’ to refer to deviant acts which are not publicly labelled. Many people may commit such acts, and they have little effect on the self-concept.

Such behaviour is rationalised or dealt with as an acceptable part of the individual’s lifestyle.

However, if the deviant behaviour is repetitive and highly visible, and if it attracts a severe societal reaction, it will begin to affect the individual’s self-concept.

Lemert states that ‘when a person begins to employ his deviant behaviour or a role based on it as a means of defence, attack, or adjustment to the.. problems created by the consequent societal reaction to him, his deviation is secondary.’

Thus, secondary deviance is deviant behaviour which is consciously engaged in as an expression of a deviant self-concept.

Originally focused on explaining delinquency in young people, Matza (1964) argued that many youths will drift in and out of deviance.

They do feel a moral obligation to obey the law, but may also feel pressure to pursue ‘subterranean values’, which challenge morally acceptable values (for example, excitement and risk-taking).

When a youth commits a deviant act, he or she will use ‘techniques of neutralisation’ which justify the act and prevent a deviant identity from initially forming, enabling the youth to drift back to legitimate activities and to preserve their self-concept as a decent person.

Matza proposes five techniques of neutralisation that individuals may use to justify their deviant behaviour:

Denial of responsibility – arguing that the behaviour was not within the individual’s control: ‘It was not my fault’
Denial of injury – arguing that the deviant behaviour did no harm: ‘No-one got hurt’
Denial of the victim – arguing that the victim deserved what happened: ‘He had it coming’.
Condemnation of the condemners – arguing that those labelling the behaviour are in the wrong, or are being hypocritical: ‘They have got it in for me’

Appeal to higher loyalties – arguing that other values, such as friendship, family or profit were behind the behaviour: ‘I was doing it to back up my mates’.

Matza suggests that most youths will eventually grow out of the drifting into deviance, as they take on adult responsibilities, though a few will start to internalise the deviant label and become habitual offenders.

The influence of the agencies of social control on the social construction of deviance

Young (1971) looked at the societal reactions to drug taking amongst some alienated young people.

He discusses groups of young people who faced a problem of ‘anomie’ and evolved into a Bohemian subculture, seeking out like-minded people and smoking marijuana as a solution to their problems.

Powerful groups in wider society saw this subculture as a threat to their interests, and through the mass media and the criminal justice system, action was taken.

Such societal reaction created new problems for the group, and the deviant behaviour actually increased.

This increase in deviance can be explained by the process of deviance amplification. Young presents different models of deviance amplification.

For example, the increased deviance may be a result of increased isolation induced by the condemnation of the original deviance.

Alternatively, it may be ‘rebellion induced’, as the deviants react angrily to the label and deviate even more.

Young brings in the idea of the self-fulfilling prophecy as another aspect of deviance amplification.

There is an imbalance of power between the social agencies defining the deviance (such as the media and the police) and the deviant group, which may lead to the group interpreting their own behaviour differently and accepting the public perception of them.

This can lead to further deviance as the deviant label is internalised

Cicourel (1968) was influenced by ideas from Lemert when he conducted his study of juvenile justice in two US cities.

His research illustrates how the recorded crime statistics are often the result of a series of interactions and negotiations between the youths and the criminal justice system.

He argues that the process of dealing with potential deviants involves the police and probation officers making judgements which are often based on pre-conceived ideas about what counts as suspicious or unusual.

The decision about whether to arrest and charge a suspect is partially based on the appearance, manner and replies the suspect gives to the police.

For example, if the individual is very apologetic and polite, no further action may be taken. Additionally, at the point of arrest, if the parents come to the station and convince the police that it will not happen again, then the individual may not be charged.

Cicourel also found substantial differences between the two cities he studied, despite their similar size and socio-economic characteristics.

One city, which employed more probation officers and kept more detailed records on offenders, had constantly high rates of juvenile delinquency.

The other city fluctuated depending on media publicity and public concern.

His conclusion is that the agencies of control and their policies operate to construct the official picture of juvenile justice in the USA.

The strengths of interactionism

Interactionism has shown that defining deviance is a complex rather than a simple process — that it is socially constructed through interaction with others and that deviance is very often a matter of interpretation.

Moreover, it has clearly shown that definitions of deviance are relative and therefore not fixed, universal or unchangeable.

Definitions of deviance and crime are constantly in a state of change, as is the law. Interactionism also shows that the law is not applied equally to all social groups.

It often enforces selectively, for example some groups are afforded more attention by the police and therefore crime statistics may tell sociologists more about policing than criminality.

Finally, interactionism was the first theory to draw attention to the social consequences of being labelled a deviant and, most importantly, to show that society’s attempts to control deviance can backfire and create more deviance rather than less

he ideas of interactionists, particularly in the 1960s, provided a challenge to the prevailing approach which appeared to blindly accept the official picture of the ‘typical criminal’ as fact, without questioning the processes and interactions underlying these statistics.

Additionally, interactionism recognises that the simplistic division between deviants and non-deviants is unrealistic, and that everyone can be deviant at times, also highlighting the social construction and relativity of deviance
The weaknesses of interactionism

Akers argues that interactionism puts too much emphasis on societal reaction.

Although it is important in some cases, he argues that some criminal acts, for example murder, rape and child abuse, are so dreadful that the act will always be more important than the reaction to it.

Also, the notion of social reaction implies that people who commit deviant acts are unaware that they are doing wrong until someone with more power points it out to them.

This might be the case with children but adults do not need to wait until a label is attached to understand that what they are doing is wrong.

Left realists claim that interactionism is guilty of failing to explain why people commit deviant acts in the first place, probably because it is too focused on the societal reaction and the consequences of labelling.

There is an unfortunate tendency in interactionism to suggest that the real problem lies with groups such as the media and the police — or indeed to blame anyone but the person labelled as a deviant.

Hence interactionists often end up romanticising offenders as victims of the establishment.

The focus is rarely on why some people might be motivated to commit crime or why they choose to commit particular types of crime or deviance rather than others.

Furthermore, interactionists often neglect the victims of crime.

Marxists argue that although interactionism acknowledges the role of power, it does not explain the origin of that power.

Marxists, of course, argue that power originates in class relationships and that labelling is an ideological process which supports the interests of the ruling class and is often used by that class to socially control the powerless.

However, interactionism has been criticised for failing to provide an explanation for the original deviant action, before the labelling process takes place.

Interactionists such as Becker and Lemert may respond to this criticism with their suggestion that the majority of people may commit deviant acts which are never labelled, implying that no explanation for the initial deviance is really necessary.
Another challenge to interactionism is that it is deterministic – assuming individuals passively live up to their label.

Some may fight to prove the label wrong, others, such as the British serial killer Harold Shipman, commit serious crime despite having no label.

Thus it does not account for the deviant’s other motives, such as status, financial gain, thrill or risk-taking.

Plummer (1979) defends interactionism against this critique, arguing that interactionists do consider individual motivations, and some explore the ways in which a labelled individual may work to throw off the label.

A significant criticism of interactionist ideas is that they apply only to minor or particular types of deviance, such as youth crime, and perceived deviant lifestyles, such as homosexuality. It is less easy to explain serious crime using ideas of labelling – the idea that a killer only becomes ‘deviant’ once labelled is not convincing.

However, Plummer suggests that there is a misconception of labelling theory at the basis of this criticism.

Interactionists are not suggesting that societal reactions bring about the behaviour, but that labels can alter the labelled individual’s self-concept and future decision-making
Though they have much in common, Marxists have also challenged interactionist ideas.

Neo-Marxists have argued that deviance can be a conscious act of resistance or rebellion, rather than a reaction to a label.

However, interactionist accounts such as those described by Young do recognise this, but argue that societal reaction to this resistance will then further influence the deviant’s behaviour. Another criticism is that interactionism fails to consider power structures in society, given its micro approach.

Interactionists frequently refer to power, in terms of the power to label and avoid a label, and the power of the agencies of social control.

However, Marxists argue that not enough attention is given to the social structure which provides this power.

Left-Wing and Right-Wing views

Right-Wing

Right-wing views tend to focus on individual achievement and opportunity, believing that equality is not possible, or even desirable, in society and that talented people should be incentivised to work hard and should be rewarded accordingly.

Thus, people will generally get what they deserve in life.

They argue that the State should not intervene to support those who are struggling because everyone should take responsibility for their own actions.

When such views are applied to crime, the focus is usually on the bad choices which individuals make, and poor socialisation leading to the ‘wrong’ norms and values being followed.

Thus right-wing thinkers would tend to blame the criminal or deviant for their actions, rather than blaming their circumstances or social inequalities.

When considering solutions to crime they focus on tougher penalties but also on stricter forms of control.

We have already considered functionalist ideas on crime and deviance, and these would be seen as right-wing views.

There are several newer right-wing views on crime and deviance.

Sometimes these are all referred to as ‘right realists’ but actually there are differences between them.

What they have in common is that they all share the general right-wing view of human nature, and are all influenced by Durkheim and functionalism.
control Theory

Instead of asking why people commit deviance and crime, Hirschi (1969) reverses the question to ask why most people do not

Social bonds, Travis Hirschi (1969)

Hirschi’s answer to the question of why people do not commit crime is that most people are too well-integrated into society and its norms and values and have too much to lose.

He argues that it is those who do not have strong ‘social bonds’ who are more likely to commit crimes.

Hirschi’s four ‘social bonds’:

Attachment – This relates to being attached toothers in society, for example, family, friends and colleagues, and caring about them and about what they think.

This would prevent many people from considering deviance, since violating the norms of society would go against the expectations that others have of you.

Commitment – This is about having responsibilities, such as a job, dependents, a house and possessions.

People obey rules for fear the consequences of breaking them.

The risk is too great as they have too much to lose.

Involvement – This refers to being part of a community, a family, a workplace or a social group, and ‘engrossment in conventional activities’.

People who are involved are too busy and occupied to consider deviance – they have a purpose.

Belief – This involves subscribing to a common value system within a culture, including religious beliefs, but also society’s general morals or values.

Such beliefs will be developed through socialisation and will prevent people from considering deviance, since they know it is ‘wrong’.

Hirschi’s argument is essentially that individuals with strong family and friendship networks, with responsibilities, who are engaged in social activities and who have a strong sense of morality, will be unlikely to commit crime.

Statistics on the prison population tends to support Hirschi’s ideas.

The New Right

The New Right view of criminality is largely put forward by Charles Murray.

It is often included as part of right realism, but some of the conclusions and the policies suggested by the New Right do differ from other right realist ideas.

Murray argues that inadequate socialisation can lead young people from the ‘underclass’ to develop a culture characterised by dependency, lack of discipline and respect, criminality and laziness.

He blames over-generous welfare payments for encouraging ‘feckless’ behaviour, and condemns the increase in single mothers raising young boys with no father in their lives, seeing ‘illegitimacy’ as a greater indicator of criminality than poverty alone.

He suggests that girls without fathers may be emotionally damaged and search for a father substitute, often getting pregnant at an early age.

Even more concerning is boys growing up without fathers, who ‘…tend to have poor impulse control, to be sexual predators, to be unable to get up at the same time every morning and go to a job’ (Murray 2005).

Murray and Herrnstein (1994) also consider the impact of cognitive ability, or intelligence, on criminal behaviour.

Using IQ data, which has been subsequently challenged, they attempted to demonstrate that there is a correlation between low IQ and criminality.

Even more controversially, they linked low IQ with race, though they did argue that white people with low IQ are also more likely to commit crime.

Evaluation of Murray’s ideas

Murray’s claims, that those in the underclass have a dependency culture and deviant values, have been challenged by many sociologists.

For example, Gallie (1994) interviewed the long-term unemployed about their attitudes towards work.

He found that most of the unemployed had a strong ‘work ethic’ and wanted to work, and there was no evidence of dependency culture.

Similarly, Charlesworth’s study of deprivation in Rotherham (1999) found that despite the clear effects which poverty had on people’s physical and mental health, most still had strong moral values and did not commit crime, even though it would have been an ‘easy option’

Young (2003) challenges the distorted picture presented by the New Right as a ‘sociology of vindictiveness’, that seeks to ‘punish, demean and humiliate’ those at the bottom of society.

He argues that certain sections of society, such as teenage mothers, beggars and immigrants, are portrayed as contributing to the problems of society quite disproportionally to their actual impact.

Young suggests that these groups are an ‘easy enemy’ and become scapegoats.

The evidence on which Murray and Herrnstein’s ideas on IQ are based is questionable, since IQ tests are challenged as being culturally biased.

Additionally, the assumption that there is a causal link between IQ and crime based on the IQ of people in prison fails to consider that other factors, such as poverty, may be influencing both IQ and criminality.

The link to race can also be challenged – the criminal justice system is criticised as institutionally racist, and those from ethnic minorities may be more likely to be arrested, charged and sentenced more harshly, not due to IQ but due to racism.

Realist criminology

Realist ideas in criminology arose in the 1970s and 1980s and can be split into right realism (sometimes called ‘new realism’) and left realism (sometimes called ‘radical realism’). As ‘realists’ they do share some basic ideas
Realists tend to accept the ‘typical criminal’ shown in the police recorded crime figures as a starting point for their explanations of crime. T

though these statistics may be flawed and even inaccurate, they do reflect real crimes.

Realists challenge some of the traditional theories for being too ‘idealistic’ and romanticising the criminal.
Realist views share a concern about the ‘corrosive effects which crime can have on communities’ (Matthews and Young, 1992), focusing on the ‘lived reality of crime’ and its effects on victims and communities.
They challenge traditional theories for being too remote and offering no practical solutions.

Both types of realism offer practical policies to address crime rates.

However, there are clear differences between realists.

Right realists take conventional definitions of crime for granted, focusing almost exclusively on ‘street crime’, whereas left realists, whilst recognising the importance of street crime to many people, do seek to challenge this narrow view of crime and consider white-collar crime and global crime as well.

In attempting to explain crime, right realists, in common with other right-wing views of crime, still tend to put the blame on the individual offenders, focusing on solutions which will control such people.

However, left realists focus more on social injustices, inequalities and relationships between the police, wider society and offenders, and can thus be seen as part of radical criminology.

Right realism

Wilson (1975) challenges mainstream criminology, particularly Marxist criminology, for being based on ideology rather than facts, for example with its over-emphasis of white-collar crime. He argues that the morals of society must be upheld, and implies that trying to understand and thus justify criminality is not desirable.

Wilson suggests that long-term trends in crime can be accounted for primarily by three factors:

Young males are the group most likely to commit crime, since they are temperamentally aggressive and tend to have short-term horizons.

Thus, shifts in the age-structure of the population will increase or decrease the crime rate, as greater or fewer numbers of young males are around.

There may be changes in the benefits and the costs of crime at different times, due to accessibility, the economy, the availability of jobs and so on, which will change the rate at which crimes occur, especially property crimes.
Broad social and cultural changes in society, reinforced through the family, the media and religion, may influence general norms and values, which may in turn affect the extent to which certain ‘at risk’ individuals are tempted into deviance or are willing to conform.

Wilson argues that these factors are largely uncontrollable, so no government can actually prevent crime at source.

He does not believe that poverty is the root cause of crime, pointing out that many poor people do not commit crime.

Thus, attempts to redistribute wealth, for example, are costly, unfair and will do little to reduce crime.

Crime can only be addressed by enforcing the law.

Wilson places less emphasis on the severity of punishment and more stress on the certainty of capture: if a criminal does not believe he will be caught, the punishment is irrelevant as a deterrent.

Thus, the environment plays a key role in creating a ‘culture’ of order and acceptable behaviour.

If social order is clearly maintained, then individuals will not be tempted to participate in deviant behaviour and if the police are visibly clamping down on crime, a culture will be created where other residents also report crime more and are involved in informal social control.

However, if there is an impression that no-one cares, and that disorder is prevalent, then even previously law-abiding people may see it as acceptable to join in with deviant behaviour.

Additionally, Wilson and Kelling (1982) argue that the community will change its behaviour in the face of low level disorder, ‘staying indoors’ more and ‘not getting involved’, which will tend to escalate the likelihood that crime will start to flourish, with no one to challenge it.

This can lead to the development of urban decay and crime will start to flourish.

Those who can, will move away and an area may go into a downward spiral.

They argue that once an area has a criminal culture there is little point trying to police it.

A foot patrol becomes useless in a very crime-ridden area – police should spend efforts elsewhere where they can make a difference.

Those areas at the tipping point should be identified, where order can be restored with a visible police presence.

Broken Windows, Wilson and Kelling (1982)

Wilson and Kelling based their ideas on psychology experiments and a study into policing in Newark, New York in the mid-1970s.

The police study, as a response to public opinion, experimented with increasing police foot patrols, or ‘bobbies on the beat’ as it is described in the UK.

The local residents, after a five-year programme of increased foot patrols, indicated that they felt much safer and that crime had reduced.

The police officers on patrol had a better relationship with the residents, and had taken on an ‘order maintenance’ role, addressing low-level deviance such as public drunkenness, rowdy behaviour and begging.

The psychology studies Wilson and Kelling considered demonstrated the ‘broken windows’ phenomenon – when a derelict building has one broken window, the others will soon follow. The principle is that when people identify a building or property as derelict and uncared for, they will see it as acceptable to further vandalise it.

Wilson and Kelling report an experiment by the psychologist Zimbardo, who left an abandoned car in a middle class area and a similar one in a more run-down area.

The second car was vandalised quite quickly, and in a few days had been completely stripped. The first car was not touched, until Zimbardo returned and smashed one of the car’s windows. After that, others quickly followed suit, and within a few hours the car had been destroyed. For Wilson and Kelling this demonstrated that once communal barriers have been broken down, deviance can happen anywhere.

In applying this more widely, they suggest that ‘untended behaviour’ leads to a breakdown of community controls.

So, in relation to the Newark experiment, the presence of the police and their ability to address low-level disorder created an orderly environment less conducive to crime.

n his earlier work, Wilson (1975) stated that ‘wicked people exist’.

Wilson and Herrnstein (1985) also emphasise that there is a biological element to criminal behaviour.

They challenge the (left-wing) criminologists who seek to deny the importance of individual characteristics, such as impulsiveness or temper, arguing that some people do have a predisposition for criminality.

These ‘criminal’ traits in some individuals will be heightened if they lack proper socialisation.

In a strong nuclear family, criminal tendencies may be suppressed, as the right norms and values are taught.

However, some families, such as single-parent families or those which lack a commitment to society’s norms and values, may not provide the important socialisation needed.

These ideas are close to those of the New Right and put the blame for criminality squarely on the individual, their biology and their upbringing.

Indeed, Herrnstein worked with Murray on ideas about IQ and criminality

Thus some of the same criticisms levelled at the Murray and the New Right are also applicable to Wilson’s right realist argument.

However, the main challenge to right realism is that it plays down the causes of offending, focusing instead on the failures in social control and punishment.

Young (1992) argues that deviance and control cannot be studied independently of each other, as they are parts of the same equation.
Left realism

Left-wing views see things very differently and tend to focus on issues of power and inequality in society.

They argue that people at the bottom are victims of their circumstances, and that equality should be the goal of society.

The state should intervene to share out the wealth and ensure everyone has equal chances.

The unequal system creates situations which may lead individuals into deviance and crime, thus left-wing views would blame the system rather than the individual deviant.

Deviance could be a result of necessity or desperation, a reaction to labelling or unequal treatment or an act of resistance against inequality.

Left-wing views also tend to argue that the law is not applied equally: ‘crime’ is defined and enforced by those with power.

Marxists are the main left-wing view of crime, but interactionists are also seen as left-wing, in their consideration of power and labelling, and radical criminology also takes a left-wing view.

Young (1986) argues that it is important for left realism to navigate between the two extremes often found in criminology: the hysteria about the underclass, media driven moral panics and the over-policing of crime in certain communities and the denial of the severity of street crime and its impact

Left realists accept that white-collar and corporate crime are significant, and they do question people on these in their research.

However, they argue that ‘left idealists’ overemphasise these types of crime to the exclusion of other crimes.

Left realists also accuse left idealists of having a romantic view of the criminal as a victim of circumstances, or a misunderstood rebel – they call this the ‘Robin Hood’ thesis

According to left realists, there has been a realand significant increase in levels of street crime, and the fear surrounding such crime.

This cannot all be explained by biased policing or moral panics.

The ‘perception’ of crime as a problem has a significant effect on people’s lives and behaviour, especially in certain areas.

For example, in the second Islington crime survey it was found that 80.5 per cent of people saw crime as problem affecting their lives.

Women were found to be particularly affected, with many not going out after dark due to fear of crime

The left realists Jock Young and John Lea are ‘left’ in that they agree with Marxists that capitalism is a deeply unequal system in terms of income, wealth and opportunity, and consequently those social groups at the bottom of the socioeconomic ladder regularly experience the shame and humiliation of living on the breadline.

They are ‘realists’ because their victim survey of London (the Islington Crime Survey) found that most victims reported that most offenders were young working-class white and black men.

However, left realists attempt to explain crime from the point of view of the criminal and suggest that crime comes about because of four very important influences.

Capitalist societies have become less community orientated because the mass media have encouraged a ‘me culture’ obsessed with achieving monetary and materialistic goals.

Consequently, people now look out for themselves and their immediate family rather than the communities in which they live.

This increasing individualism means that community and neighbourhood controls over crime and deviance have weakened.

Relative deprivation.

Capitalist societies are deeply unequal societies in terms of wealth and income.

However, the media have also made people aware of how much they have or lack compared with similar groups of people.

Left realists argue that those at the very bottom of society (the working class and ethnic minorities) may feel ‘relatively deprived’ compared with their middle-class or white peers.

They see these peers enjoying material comforts such as designer labels and feel that they should have access to the same.

They feel frustrated, angry and hostile because they see their route to these material things as blocked by society

Left realists argue that feelings of relative deprivation are worsened by feelings of powerlessness.

Those at the bottom of society may feel marginalised.

This means they feel that they cannot change their situation because they are not represented by powerful interests such as political parties.

Moreover, they may also feel that they have been unfairly stigmatised for their poverty by the police (who constantly stop and search them) and the media which dismiss them as lazy andas scroungers.

Lea and Young also suggest that these feelings of marginalisation are reinforced by the military-style policing of inner-city areas and procedures such as stop and search.

As a result, they note, there is a great deal of pent-up frustration and hostility among inner-city populations that may erupt now and then into riots and looting.

Subcultural responses.

The combination of relative deprivation and marginalisation may express itself in subcultural form as people with similar experiences and frustrations come together.

Some of this subcultural response may be expressed through crime as young men, both black and white, get involved in territorial street gangs and attempt to relieve their feelings of deprivation and marginalisation through violence, drug dealing, etc. Subcultural responses may also be retreatist as people become addicted to hard drugs as a means of coping with the boredom and humiliation of poverty.

However, some subcultural responses can be positive too.

Many of the deprived and marginalised may find compensation in sporting success or comfort in religion

The square of crime

Matthews and Young (1992) see the notion of the ‘square of crime’ as an important reminder to criminologists that crime arises at an intersection.

Any understanding of the roles of the offender and the victim must be supplemented with an understanding of the role of public opinion and informal control, expressed through the media, the influence of peers, the community, the family and so on.

The fourth element is the role of the State, in the form of the formal agencies of social control, such as the government, police and criminal justice system.

These last two clearly intersect, since public sentiment can drive government policy and police practice, and vice versa.

In their recognition of the social construction of ‘crime’ and the role of individual interpretations and structural processes, left realist ideas are similar to the radical criminologists considered above, and Young acknowledges this.

However, left realism focuses on victims more than other radical views

What is to be done about Law and Order? John Lea and Jock Young (1993)

Lea and Young explain crime in terms of three concepts

Relative deprivation – This concept relates to feelings of deprivation which people may experience when they compare themselves to others in their society.

It used to be assumed that as societies became wealthier, crime rates would fall.

However, the reverse has proved true, and the concept of relative deprivation can help to explain this.

In wealthy countries, the gap between the ‘haves’ and the ‘have-nots’ is vast, and we are continually encouraged to strive for more and to judge ourselves against those more successful than ourselves.

Relative deprivation may be fuelled by the media, which shows us what others appear to have, and promotes materialism and false needs.

It can be linked to Young’s concept of the ‘bulimic society’

Marginalisation – This concept refers to those on the edges or margins of society, who lack clearly defined goals, involvement and representation in society.

Those who are marginalised, or socially excluded, may feel abandoned and frustrated, experiencing economic, social and political deprivation

Subculture – This is used to refer to a group with a shared set of norms and values, developed as a response to the norms and values of wider society, which may be unachievable.

The formation of subcultures is linked to relative deprivation and marginalisation, as those who share a sense of deprivation and frustration will develop lifestyles which allow them to cope with this problem.

Though they are left-wing, Lea and Young are influenced by subcultural theorists such as Cohen and also by Merton.

So ideas such as anomie, strain and status frustration can be particularly applied to those who are relatively deprived, marginalised and operate in subcultures.

However, left-wing influences can clearly be seen in Lea and Young’s analysis, which sees the social and economic circumstances of the individual, rather than their upbringing and choices, to be the key causes of criminality.
The exclusive society

In later work, Young (1999) developed the concepts of relative deprivation and marginalisation, focusing on the way in which society economically excludes increasing numbers of people, and drawing a link between social exclusion and crime. Referring to Hutton’s view of the ‘40:30:30 society’ (40 per cent secure employment, 30 per cent insecure employment, 30 per cent marginalised/idle/poverty),

Young argues that as economic exclusion increases, this leads to social exclusion, the breakdown of communities and families and an increase in crime and disorder.

This can create a culture of fear, which can lead to scapegoating and even more social divisions.

Young is concerned that this breakdown in consensus is leading to a less tolerant society, with harsher reactions towards the excluded and the deviant.

This lack of tolerance partially comes from the right-wing of sociology, and what Young calls the ‘sociology of vindictiveness’.

Despite their use of victim surveys, left realists are challenged for their lack of evidence on the motives of offenders themselves.

Some also question how ‘new’ their ideas are – left realism can be seen as merely an extension of radical criminology.

What distinguishes realist criminology is its focus on practical solutions, and some of the ‘solutions’ presented by left realists, such as addressing the fundamental inequalities in society, can be seen as decidedly ‘unrealistic’.

There are clear distinctions between right and left realists.

By explaining crime in terms of deprivation and exclusion, left realists are focusing on the impact of society and inequalities on individual behaviour.

In contrast, the right realists are focusing more on the socialisation and norms and values of offenders.

This distinction is demonstrated clearly in the different solutions to crime that each view puts forward.

Strengths of left realism

Hughes notes that the strength of left realism is that it attempts to describe and explain why most street crime occurs in deprived inner-city areas.

Most importantly, it does not attempt to over-romanticise the young working-class white and black males which left realists see as most responsible for this crime.

Left realists have also highlighted the effect of crime on victims.

They have clearly shown that most victims of crime are members of deprived groups, a fact that most theories of crime have ignored or neglected.

Weaknesses of left realism

There is no empirical evidence to support the view that young working-class or black criminals feel deprived and marginalised and that this is the main motive that underpins their criminal behaviour.

Moreover, even if this were the case, left realists do not explain why the majority of working-class and African-Caribbean males living in inner-city areas are law-abiding and never get into trouble with the police.

Finally, left realism focuses only on collective or subcultural criminal responses and does not explain crimes such as burglary that are committed by individuals rather than gangs.

New Right and right realism The New Right sociologists, Charles Murray and David Marsland, argue that most crime in both the USA and the UK is committed by a highly deviant, immoral and workshy subculture called the ‘underclass’.

This group is allegedly made up of ‘problem families’ living on inner-city council estates who are dependent on state benefits and who socialise the next generation into seeing criminal and antisocial behaviour as ‘normal’
However, both Murray and Marsland have been accused of negatively stereotyping and scapegoating the poor.

There is no empirical evidence that the underclass subculture actually exists.

Surveys of the poor living in deprived areas suggest they generally subscribe to values and aspirations not that dissimilar to the rest of society.

A more sophisticated right-wing theory of crime and deviance is right realism.

First, Clarke argues that criminals have free will and choose to commit crime on the basis of a rational weighing-up of the benefits of crime (for example, the financial reward) against the potential costs (for example, the possibility of being caught and punished).

Clarke argues that crime has increased for the following reasons:

Policing is poor. Criminals know there is little chance of being caught.
Community controls are weak.

For example, ordinary people in high crime areas are too afraid to speak out against criminals.

Punishments are too lenient.

For example, offenders are more likely to get community service than prison.

Second, Travis Hirschi suggests that most people do not commit crime because the costs of crime to them as individuals always outweigh the benefits.

This theory is also known as control theory.

There are four main controls that mean that the costs of crime will always outweigh the benefits for most people:

Most people fear losing the love and respect of their partners and family.

Most people fear losing their jobs, their homes, their standard of living etc.
Most people fear losing their positive reputation and the respect of their friends, colleagues, community etc

Most people have been successfully socialised into respecting others, obeying the law etc.

However, both Clarke and Hirschi can be criticised as there is no empirical evidence supporting their claims.

Postmodernists such as Katz argue that delinquency is often unplanned, spontaneous and certainly not rational.

It is often thoughtless — offenders rarely think about the consequences either for the victim or for themselves. Katz argues that delinquency is motivated by young men’s search for thrills, excitement and pleasure.

He claims that this search for thrills, or transgression as he calls it, is rooted in masculinity and that it aims to counter the boredom of everyday life.

The third and very influential version of right realism is the ‘broken windows’ theory of Wilson and Kelling, which sees the decline of inner-city communities as responsible for the rise in crime.

They argue that if a community allows its physical environment to decline and delinquent gangs will assume that local social or community controls no longer exist and see this as an excuse to commit even more crime.

However, the broken windows thesis can be criticised for failing to take on board wider structural reasons for crime such as inequalities in wealth and income, the persistence of poverty and the cultural emphasis that success equals material gain, which potentially create a culture of envy or relative deprivation among society’s ‘have nots’.

It reduces solutions to crime to short-term fixes, for example cleaning up the neighbourhood, rather than long-term economic investment in deprived communities to generate jobs. Subcultural theories

Subcultural theories

focus mainly on crimes committed by young people in groups or gangs

The official statistics suggest that the typical criminal is young, male and working class. Subcultural theorists tend to accept this view of the ‘typical criminal’.

They focus on the influence of the peer group on young people and the norms and values which may form within subcultures to explain criminality.

Subcultures formed by working class youths may normalise criminal and deviant behaviour as a response to the strains created by their social class and lack of opportunities.

Cloward and Ohlin (1961) also see deviance as a reaction to problems in achieving the values of mainstream culture, and are clearly influenced by Merton’s strain theory.

The deviant is unable to achieve valued goals (such as success and money) through legitimate means, and thus innovates, using illegitimate or deviant means to attain them.

They argue that legitimate routes to valued goals are differently available, but so are the routes to these goals through illegitimate means.

Access to ‘criminal subcultures’, through which gang members can access a hierarchy of criminal opportunity making money through criminal enterprises, is not available to all youths. In more unstable, disorganised areas, youths turn to violence and ‘conflict subcultures’ are formed to defend territory.

Youths who are unable to access success through mainstream values or through joining criminal or conflict subcultures may withdraw from society’s values altogether, descending into addiction and petty crime, becoming ‘retreatists’

Delinquent boys: the culture of the gang, Albert Cohen (1955)

Cohen focuses on delinquent subcultures, or gangs, which were prevalent in America’s cities in the 1950s.

He challenges the view that criminal activity is similar across the age-range, arguing that juvenile delinquency is uniquely non-utilitarian and associated with short-term hedonism

He also recognises the acute pressures towards conformity to the peer group which youths feel, and how important their position in the group and their status in the eyes of others becomes.

The achievement of status – ‘respect in the eyes of one’s fellows’ – is paramount.

Working class boys are aware of mainstream values, such as success at school, good qualifications, a good job and financial success, and they understand that a middle class boy could get status if he achieved these things.

However, a working class boy who clings to this value system will recognise himself as inferior compared to middle class boys.

This creates a feeling of ‘status frustration’.

In a delinquent subculture, status may be achieved via alternative criteria, such as being good in a fight.

Those who perform successfully in terms of delinquent values within their subculture can gain status in the eyes of their peers, and can look down on the middle class boys who do not measure up to their status.
Albert Cohen’s subcultural theory aimed to explain the emergence of street gangs in the USA in the 1950s but it is still useful today for its insights into why young people organise themselves in this way.

Cohen claimed that gangs or subcultures were the product of ‘status frustration’.

He argued that young people, like any other group, desire status, respect and attention.

Most young people achieve these goals via approval from their families or at school.

However, working-class young men may be denied status and respect, particularly in education, because their families have failed to equip them with the necessary academic and social skills.

Cohen argued that they react to this social slight by forming anti-school subcultures inside school and anti-social street gangs outside school that award status and respect on the basis of acting out deviant values — they earn status from each other by breaking the rules of school and society.

Similar to this is Sutherland’s theory of differential association, which argues that if the majority of teenagers in an area are acting in a deviant way, it is difficult for the rest of the group not to be influenced by such behaviour
However, Cohen has been criticised because only a small minority of working-class youth get involved with gangs or anti-school subcultures.

Cohen’s theory therefore fails to explain why the majority of working-class youth, who probably share many of the same experiences of school as deviant youth, do not engage in subcultural activities.

Cloward and Ohlin attempt to compensate for this weakness in Cohen’s analysis by pointing out that the type of delinquency young people gets involved in depends on the type of illegitimate opportunity structure that exists where they live.

Cloward and Ohlin suggest that some young people may get involved with organised adult criminal subcultures which specialise in drug-dealing and protection rackets.

Winlow’s study of young unemployed bodybuilders suggests that this violent route is common in Sunderland and the North East of England.

However, Marshall suggests that such criminal routes are in fact quite rare in the UK.

Most working-class youth share the values and goals of their parents and consequently are more likely to be working towards qualifications and jobs.

If they do get involved in subcultural activities, it is likely to take the form of drifting in and out of what Marshall calls ‘crews’ — unorganised groups of young people who tend to hang around together on street corners as a leisure activity in the evenings and weekends.

If the crew does engage in antisocial behaviour, it is likely to be caused by boredom, high spirits or simply too much alcohol.

Another subculturalist is Walter Miller, who takes a different approach to Cohen.

The role of subculture in the development of deviant values was also considered by Miller (1958). He argues that working class boys have their own ‘focal concerns’ (values) which have the potential to lead them into deviant behaviour.

These are different to the values of middle class youths, this can help explain why levels of deviance are higher amongst the working class.

The focal concerns of young working class boys include valuing freedom and excitement, being in trouble, being tough and macho, and being smart and ‘streetwise’.

Conformity to this value system is more important to working class boys than middle class codes of conduct.

Miller sees juvenile delinquency as a natural outcome of a working-class subculture which stresses deviant ways of behaving called focal concerns.

These include a heightened sense of masculinity which stresses toughness and using violence as a problem-solving device, looking for excitement, being anti-authority and being streetwise. Evaluation of subcultural theories

Subcultural theories have been criticised by feminist sociologists for being ‘malestream’, which means they focus exclusively on boys and fail to take any interest in girls’ deviance or involvement with subcultures.

Interactionists argue that the problem of delinquent subcultures is socially constructed by police stereotyping of young people as potentially more deviant than other groups.

As a result, groups of youth are targeted by the police and stopped, searched and arrested more than other social groups.

Marxists criticise subculturalists because they fail to acknowledge the role of unemployment, poverty and urban deprivation caused by the unequal organisation of the capitalist system

The views of Cohen, Cloward and Ohlin and Miller can all be criticised for the way in which they generalise about working class culture.

In reality, working class styles are many and varied, and are subject to regional, ethnic and gender variations.

Their ideas could also be seen as outdated.

An alternative view on subcultures and deviance comes from a radical, neo-Marxist perspective.

For example, P. Cohen (1972) argues that the range of deviant, working class subcultures are an expression of contradictions within the parent culture.

Examples may include the contradiction between traditional working class values and consumer culture, and the contradiction between upward social mobility and the marginalisation of the underclass.

Some working class subcultures embraced consumerism and upward mobility, through their style which mimicked the middle class, for example mods.

Others demonstrated more obvious resistance, such as skinheads.

Cohen identified a link between the rise of such subcultures and a rise in levels of youth crime. Such delinquency is linked to territoriality and identity, but is also an expression of protest against the class situation the youths find themselves in

A general criticism of subcultural views is that they mainly seek to explain crimes committed by young, working class males.

It could be that this crime is the most visible and the most focused on by the police, rather than the most prevalent.

In developing subcultural ideas, cultural criminology clearly draws together ideas from functionalists, neo-Marxists and postmodernists to help explain criminality.

However, it also draws on ideas about labelling and the social construction of crime.

These ideas are most associated with interactionists, who look more closely at some of the criticisms.

Cultural criminology

As seen in Winlow’s study above, changes in society (from modern to postmodern) and the impact of this on working class communities may have affected criminality as well.

More recent views on the influence of culture and subculture on crime have clear links back to the work of Merton, A.Cohen and Miller, as well as neo-Marxists, but modify and apply these ideas to fit the postmodern experience.

Cultural criminology brings a postmodern view to an understanding of delinquent subcultures, seeing them as expressions of identity, resistance and power struggle.

Ferrell (1999) explains that cultural criminology stresses the ‘energy of everyday life’: crime is a result of anger, humiliation, exuberance, excitement and fear, rather than a rational decision-making process.

Katz (1988) argues that sociological explanations which focus on social characteristics such as social class, ethnicity and gender alone fail to take into account the ways in which people are drawn and propelled into crime, and the lure and authentic attractions which crime has.

Many of those who fit the social characteristics of a typical criminal are not drawn into crime, so to fully understand criminality, we must understand its seductions

For example, he suggests that a physical fight may be nothing more than a show of toughness. So crime is presented as having quite selfish and individualistic motivations.

However, when Katz discusses crime as an expression of identity, for example being a ‘badass’, there are still links to ideas from subcultural theorists such as Miller

In his exploration of risk-taking behaviour, Lyng (2005) uses the concept of ‘edgework’.

This concept refers to exploring the edges that exist along cultural boundaries and undertaking activities which push and test those boundaries.

Lyng argues that edgework can lead to intense emotions such as fear, anxiety and exhilaration, and by mastering those emotions the individual can feel a sense of control and accomplishment.

Edgework is seen both as an escape from the constraints of modern society and as a way of coping and functioning in an increasingly complex postmodern society.

These ideas have been applied to criminality, and can be linked to Katz’s ideas about the seductions of crime and the sense of danger but also control which criminality may offer the perpetrator

Cultural criminologists are also interested in power relations and the reactions to deviance from the media and the State, for example, the ‘criminalization’ of subcultural expressions of identity. This can be seen in reactions to nineteenth century hooligans, the moral panics surrounding mods and rockers, the public outrage created by punk and glam rock and the more recent concerns about gangsta rap.

The role of the media in the social construction of crime and deviance is clear and, given the ever increasing role of the media in our lives, its influence on perceptions of crime should not be underestimated.

Ideas from many of these cultural and subcultural studies have been developed by Young (2003) to explain underclass criminality.

Like Presdee, Young believes that working class deviance is about transgression, rebellion, risk-taking, anger and frustration.

He argues that we live in a ‘bulimic society’, meaning a culture in which citizens are encouraged to ‘worship success, money, wealth and status’ but are ’systematically excluded from its realisation’.

He discusses the ‘intensity of exclusion’ felt by the underclass, incorporating feelings of relative deprivation, but also resentment and humiliation.

Similar to Merton, Young uses the idea of ‘anomie’ to describe the contradictory feelings which today’s society brings, describing it as ‘the vertigo of late modernity’.

He sees deviance as both an expression of exclusion and a desire for inclusion.

These ideas are similar to those of Nightingale (1993), who describes the ‘paradox of inclusion’ experienced by young black youths, who turned to deviance to achieve the goals of mainstream society.
Cultural criminology and the carnival of crime, Mike Presdee (2002)

Carnival has its historical roots as a cathartic ritual, though which hedonistic desires can be expressed and transgression (deviance) is celebrated.

Most societies have some form of ‘carnival’, where a few times a year people can ‘let off steam’.

Presdee argues that in postmodern society, ‘carnival’ is a constant need and people live for the next opportunity to transgress – for example, girls’ or lads’ nights out and the binge drinking culture seen throughout the country every weekend.

Those in power tolerate ‘carnival’ as a necessary safety valve, but are constantly trying to limit and control transgressive behaviour, since it is a threat to social order.

Thus, the response of the authorities to deviance tends to be an increase in control.

However, Presdee argues that ‘the creeping criminalisation of everyday life’ provokes even more transgression.

This is because one motivation to commit crime is the ‘revolt against the mundane’. Rules are broken because they are there.

The ‘risk’ involved in deviant activity is what makes it appealing and is a challenge not a deterrent.

Presdee gives the example of joyriding in Oxford, where the stealing and racing of cars became a regular ritual on one estate.

The events were purely for pleasure, thrill and excitement, the stealing and driving abilities of those involved gained them status.

The risk and danger further added to the thrill.

Those in power continually try to either criminalise or sanitise expressions of resistance. Activities which cannot be stamped out by use of the law and force are sometimes regulated and become ‘mainstream’, thus losing their appeal.

Presdee cites the rave scene of the 1980s as an example of this

As social mobility becomes entrenched and large sections of society move away from their origins through enhanced educational and career opportunities, those who are left behind in the inner-cities have to make sense of their failure.

Katz and Jackson-Jacobs (2004) argue that ‘gangs make local attachments glorious’, transforming the continuation of childhood friendships and hangouts into matters of pride – hence phrases like ‘homeboy’ becoming a badge of respect, rather than an insult.

So gangs are a way for those who have failed to climb the social ladder to maintain status and respect.

Crimes of the powerful: White-collar crime and corporate crime

White-collar crime is often taken to refer to crime committed by professionals in the course of their employment.

However, it is a problematic concept with a vague meaning and is used by different groups of sociologists to refer to different activities, from an employee stealing paper clips from work to a multi-national corporation knowingly taking health and safety risks to maximise profits
Some of the activities often considered under the heading of white-collar crime are not actually criminal offences, but could or should be seen as criminal, according to some Marxist sociologists, such as tax avoidance or price fixing.

White-collar crime was originally defined by Sutherland (1949) as ‘a crime committed by a person of respectability and high social status in the course his occupation’.

Thus it would not include an upper-class person who stabs his enemy – since this is not occupational, and would also not include those in the criminal underworld running protection rackets – since they lack the respectability and status Sutherland mentions.

Croall (2001a) challenges the use of the word ‘crime’ in Sutherland’s definition, given the earlier point that some activity is not technically criminal, and also questions whether the status of the person is always important, since it may be the position of trust which they hold which causes the harm.

An alternative definition, given by Croall is ‘an abuse of a legitimate occupational role that is regulated by law’.

However, it is helpful to recognise that those considering white-collar crime are often considering two distinct types of crime:

Occupational crime – crime committed by employees in the course of their jobs, for example, stealing from or defrauding an employer;
Corporate crime – crime carried out by businesses or corporations, often motivated by a desire to increase or protect profits
A third type of crime, State crime, is also sometimes considered as part of white-collar crime. State crime refers to ‘criminal’ acts carried out by nation states, such as acts of war, genocide and arms trading.

White-collar crime is very difficult to estimate and investigate.

People in powerful positions are able to use their financial and political power to escape arrest and conviction, which could explain the under-representation of white-collar crime in the official statistics. It is also unlikely to appear in victim surveys.

Victims of crimes such as fraud may be unaware of their victimisation, and if a company is the victim of employee white-collar crime it may decide not to publicise the matter even if it becomes aware.

Other crimes, such as corruption, are often seen as ‘victimless’, though arguably the public at large are the eventual victims.

For example, prices often rise to cover losses caused by white-collar crime.

Marxists argue that the criminal law is a tool of the ruling class, and thus the powerful actually create the law to serve their own interests, criminalising activities which they see as undesirable whilst allowing other activities, which may be even more damaging to the general population, to continue.

The powerful are also able to manipulate the public perception of criminality.

For example, Box (1983) points out that the way society defines criminality focuses on working class criminals.

So what we see as ‘theft’ would be more likely to involve a working class shoplifter, rather than a company charging high prices, or a bank charging people to use their own money.

Thus he argues that white-collar crime is not ‘socially constructed’ as crime, and is given less focus than crimes committed by the powerful, even though they ultimately cause more harm to society.

Illustrating Box’s point, Tombs (1999) analysed deaths at work caused by employer activity.

He found a total of 1,316 fatal injuries in the period 1994–95, including 36 fatalities from the supply or use of flammable liquids and 877 fatalities associated with driving in the course of employment.

Occupationally caused fatal illnesses such as asbestosis and lung disease produced a further 1702 deaths.

He concludes that the scale of unlawful workplace deaths ‘vastly outweighs the numbers of recorded homicides’, which stood in that year at 834 homicides in England, Wales and Scotland.

Goldstraw-White (2010) found that even those convicted of white-collar crimes often do not see themselves as ‘real criminals’.

She conducted semi-structured interviews with 41 offenders imprisoned for white-collar crimes, such as fraud and tax evasion.

Though the value of their offences ranged from £18 million to £100 million, she found that many did not accept that they had done anything wrong, distinguishing themselves from other inmates.

They felt morally justified in what they had done, and stressed that they did not ‘hurt’ anyone, resisting the label of criminal.

Risk plays a large part in white-collar crime according to Friedrichs (1996).

Though the chances of being caught and punished are very low, such activity does involve a calculated gamble, which may be part of the appeal.

However, he also points out that corporate decision making often involves a cost-benefit analysis, in which the possible risks of cutting corners (for example, in terms of the safety of workers, customers and the general public) are weighed against the additional profits which may be generated.

Though weighing life against profit can be seen as fundamentally immoral, Friedrichs argues that such calculations play a central role in business

However, despite evidence about the prevalence of and harm done by crimes of the powerful, realists argue that, in reality, what ordinary people care about and are frightened of is street crime.

Thus, Marxists could be accused of over-emphasising the importance of white-collar crime, rather than accepting the ‘fact’ that most criminals are from the working class.

Explanations for white-collar crime:

Personality based approaches – Psychologists argue that certain personality types can be linked to success in business, but they may also be linked to criminality.

For example, successful people are likely to be ambitious, but also possibly unscrupulous and prepared to tread on others to reach top.

This lack of personal morality may explain why successful people may also sometimes ‘cross the line’ and commit white-collar crime.

Differential Association – Sutherland and Cressey’s (1955) theory of differential association relates to the frequency of exposure to deviant definitions, which can affect an individual’s tendency to follow a deviant path, as he or she learns ‘appropriate’ responses to different situations.

Criminal practices may become the cultural norm amongst people in some businesses, thus the white-collar criminal may not see him or herself as deviant at all, but see the behaviour as appropriate in the context of the workplace culture.

Other explanations for crime considered previously tend to relate to working-class crime, for example status-frustration, subculture, poverty and inequality.

These do not seem to apply to white-collar crime

Explaining the relationship between gender and crime, including feminist explanations

Are women getting away with offending?

Pollak (1950) argued that the idea that males commit significantly more crime than females is a myth, caused by the differences in the types of crimes committed and the differences in the perception and treatment of male and female offenders.

There is a biological element to his analysis, as he suggests that women are compelled by their physiology to commit certain crimes: their hormones and menstrual cycles cause emotional disturbance and low self-esteem.

He also claims that women are biologically more devious than men, given their need to conceal menstruation, fake orgasms and the requirement for them to have a passive role in society. They use their home environment to conceal their crimes and women prefer professions like maids, nurses and teachers so that they can engage in undetectable domestic crime.

Women also manipulate men to commit crime for them – they are often the mastermind and beneficiary, but avoid arrest since male partners
take the blame.

Pollak additionally suggests that chivalry within the criminal justice system results in more lenient treatment of female offenders.

Though much of Pollak’s argument has no basis in evidence he ‘chivalry thesis’ has been put forward by several criminologists, suggesting that females are ‘getting away with’ their offences

The chivalry thesis: differences in the treatment of male and female offenders

The chivalry thesis is the argument that the male-dominated criminal justice system has a paternalistic and indulgent attitude towards women, seeing them as vulnerable, child-like and not fully responsible for their actions.

This may lead male police officers to let females off with warnings or cautions, or charge them with lesser offences, and may lead male judges and magistrates to sentence female offenders more leniently.

There is some evidence to support the idea of chivalry within the criminal justice system – female criminals do tend to receive more lenient sentences from the courts for certain types of offences.

For example, Speed and Burrows (2006) found in their review of sentencing for shoplifting cases in 2004–5 that male offenders were twice as likely to receive a custodial sentence as female offenders (30 per cent, as against 15 per cent).

However, chivalry can be challenged as too simplistic.

Klein (1973) argues that the concept of chivalry is racist and classist, founded on the notion of women as ‘ladies’, and that this only applicable to middle class white women, who are the least likely to come into contact with the criminal justice system in the first place.

Heidensohn (1986) suggests that female offenders who conform to the expectation of feminine behaviour, by crying or showing maternal love, may be treated more ‘leniently’ than males, but those who do not are treated more severely.

Carlen (1983) points out that a female’s role as a mother is also taken into account much more than a male’s role as a father in sentencing – which can lead to the appearance of leniency, since many female offenders have children.

Courts take into account various factors when sentencing any offender. Mitigating factors operate in the offender’s favour and may reduce the sentence, for example, a lack of previous offending, a guilty plea or personal circumstances.

Aggravating factors have the opposite effect, and may increase the severity of a sentence. These may include a lack of remorse, a prior history of offending and the use of a weapon. Though Farrington and Morris (1983) found some empirical evidence that women did receive less severe punishments, they also found that female offenders are far more likely to be first-time offenders, to plead guilty and to have committed a less serious form of the relevant offence; they stole smaller or fewer items, used less violence, and so on.

They concluded that female offenders are not being treated any differently from males when mitigating factors are taken into account.

Hedderman and Gunby (2013) found, in their interviews with judges and magistrates involved in sentencing, that there was an awareness that female offenders often have much more complex problems.

One magistrate pointed out that much female offender crime is related to their relationships with men, including domestic violence and single-parenthood.

The fact that these mitigating factors are taken into account when sentencing may be completely appropriate, and not evidence of ‘chivalry’ at all.
On the other hand, there is evidence that, far from the lenience suggested by the chivalry thesis, females may be treated more harshly than their male counterparts in some circumstances.

For example, behaviour which would be seen as ‘high spirits’ in boys is seen as abnormal and unacceptable in girls, and thus teenage girls are sometimes subject to stricter sanctions for relatively minor transgressions.

Chesney-Lind (1989) argues that female deviance tends to be ‘sexualised’ – attributed to a lack of morality, being ‘easy’ and ‘out of control’.

Though female delinquency has received little attention from criminologists in comparison to male delinquency, historically the labelling and interventions into the lives of female delinquents in the USA had a significant impact on lives of many young girls.

In her research into US courts in the nineteenth and early twentieth century, Chesney-Lind found many more girls than boys were sent to ‘training schools’, and girls were charged with ‘waywardness’ or ‘immorality’ based on their sexual behaviour.

When women do commit serious offences, especially if they are violent and/or involving children, they are going against female stereotypes.

These women are often demonised by the media, and presented as ‘monsters’, devoid of any feminine characteristics – this is sometimes referred to as the ‘evil woman’ theory.

The media portrayal and public perception of Myra Hindley, the Moors Murderer, is a good example.

Despite her death in prison in 2002, in the public mind she arguably remains more notorious and hated than Ian Brady, her co-defendant, even though it is widely accepted that he was the driving force behind the pair’s killings of five children in the early 1960s.

It has been suggested, for example by her biographer Jean Ritchie, that if Hindley had played her part in the original trial differently, renouncing Brady and showing more emotion and remorse, she may have been treated less harshly by the court and the media.

Biological explanations for gender differences in criminality

Early criminologists often explained crime and deviance in terms of biology, and these explanations were also applied to the difference in levels of male and female criminality.

Though recognising the impact of social conditions on criminality, Lombroso (1898) argued that biological anomalies were a more significant indicator, seeing the habitual criminal as halfway between ‘the lunatic’ and ‘the savage’.

He claimed that most women are genetically less inclined towards criminality, showing a natural passivity and not possessing enough intelligence or initiative to break the law.

However, the female ‘born criminal’, though few in number, could be especially savage. By studying the physiology of female criminals, he concluded that they possessed genetic anomalies, showed masculine traits and a lack of maternal instinct.

Thomas (1907) argued that men and women possess essentially different personality traits. Men have more active natures and women are more passive, impacting on their tendency to criminality.

In a later work (1923) Thomas argued that women require more social approval and affection than men.

The socially acceptable way of achieving this involves accepting domesticity, and this is the path which middle-class women take.

Poor females, who lack socialisation and morality, may refuse to take on a submissive role, but may instead use their sexuality for emotional gain: ‘The beginning of delinquency in girls is usually an impulse to get amusement, adventure, pretty clothes, favourable notice…’.

Critics have suggested that, like Pollak, Thomas was expanding on the biblical myth of the scheming and manipulative woman, and showed ignorance of the extreme economic hardships facing the deprived women he described
In opposition to these early accounts of female criminality, most sociologists consider the expectations of society and the process of socialisation to have a more significant impact on criminality than any ‘natural’ traits
Functionalist explanations: Sex-role theory

Functionalists focus on socialisation, particularly within the family, as an explanation of the higher levels of male criminality, and by implication, the lower levels of female criminality.

Sex-role theory contends that boys and girls are socialised differently, resulting in boys becoming more delinquent.

Sutherland (1949) stated that there are clear gender differences when it comes to socialisation. Firstly, girls are more supervised, taught to be more passive and domesticated and are more strictly controlled.

Boys are encouraged to take risks, and to be ambitious, extrovert, tough and aggressive. Therefore, boys have more opportunity and inclination to commit crime. If some women do become deviant, it may be because they have been socialised in more masculine ways, maybe as tomboys or with brothers.

Parsons (1955) believes that there are clear and obvious gender roles within the nuclear family. The father performs the ‘instrumental’ role which requires him to be the leader and provider, whilst the mother performs the ‘expressive’ role of giving emotional support and socialising children.

Girls are socialised into more submissive and caring behaviour compared to boys, which is less conducive to deviance.

Additionally, girls have a readily available female role model at home (their mother) whereas boys have less access to their male role model as traditionally the father was out at work for most of the time.

Parsons argues that the young male child experiences ‘status anxiety’ and has difficulty identifying with the correct sex – this can lead to exaggerated masculine behaviour and frustration, which may be channelled into delinquency.

Feminist explanations

Much feminist work on explaining female offending rates has focused not on why some females do commit crime, but why the majority do not.

Such feminist views also focus on socialisation, so to an extent their ideas may seem similar to the views of functionalists.

However, the feminist views also highlight the controls placed on women and girls in patriarchal society which prevent them from having the opportunities which may lead to criminality. Feminists see this as a form of patriarchy, rather than as a desirable reinforcement of ‘natural’ roles.

Smart (1976) looked at the stricter socialisation and control over girls within the family.

These controls on how often, and when, girls are allowed to go out, and where and with whom they are allowed to go, are fed by exaggerated fears about safety.

Stranger sex attacks are very rare, and boys are actually more likely to become victims of physical attacks, but parental fear leads to girls and women becoming prisoners in their own homes.

For males, crime can be seen as role-expressive – an extension of the male role of protector, provider and dominant aggressor.

However, for females, crime is role-distorting – going against their expected role of nurturer and carer.

Women have more to lose if they do deviate – they not only risk prosecution and punishment, but also disapproval and being seen as ‘unfeminine’, whereas a male criminal is still thought of as a true man.

So a female deviant is ‘doubly deviant’.

Women and social control, Frances Heidensohn (1996)

Heidensohn argues that women experience four forms of control, which tend to lead to conformity rather than deviance:

At home: through their role as housewife and mother, in terms of the expectations of nurturing, the constraints placed on women’s activities and the ‘supervision’ which women are placed under;
In public: via notions of ‘reputation’, the male monopoly of violence and fears of victimisation, and through expectations of ‘a woman’s place’ and men’s control of the public domain;
At work: through the dual burden of the housewife role and that of waged worker, and through their subordinate roles in the workplace itself;
In social policy: such as welfare and benefits provisions which tend to reinforce women’s position as primary carers.

Females are particularly controlled through familial ideology.

A woman’s expected primary role is arguably still that of housewife and mother.

In fulfilling this role, women play a key part in maintaining social order, by socialising the next generation and supporting their husbands, providing a comfortable refuge which will limit the delinquent activities of men as well.

Any deviation from this domesticated role will risk labelling and more sanctions for breaking the role as well as the deviance itself.

However, Carlen (1987) has challenged and developed control theory, arguing that it is important to explain why some women do commit crime, despite such patriarchal control.

She argues that the costs of criminal behaviour will usually outweigh the benefits for women, since most women conform to notions of respectable womanhood expected by society, making both a ‘class deal’ and a ‘gender deal’.

Thus, the women most likely to become offenders are those who may have been brought up outside the familial ideology which reinforces the gender deal women who are marginalised in terms of education and employment, and thus cannot fulfil the class deal.

Such women may feel they have little to lose.

Sisters in Crime: The Rise of the New Female Criminal, Freda Adler (1975)

Adler pointed out that there had been and would continue to be an increase in female crime. She cites ‘liberation’ as the main cause – as females achieve equality this leads them into more ‘masculine’ behaviour.

On one level she argues it is about opportunity.

As women leave the domestic sphere, they may have more opportunities to commit crimes such as embezzlement and fraud.

Additionally, in the workplace, the traits encouraged in males which may lead to criminality, such as assertiveness, aggression and risk-taking, will apply to female employees too.

Adler uses international statistical evidence from the 1960s to show female crime increasing at a much faster rate than male crime, though this increase only applied to property rather than violent crime.
There has been some support for Adler’s ideas in regard to a change in acceptable behaviour for young females today.

For example, Jackson (2006) found that there seems to be more prevalence and acceptance of ‘laddish’ behaviour from girls.

Denscombe (2001) found that the teenage girls he studied were adopting traditionally ‘male’ values, such as being hard, being in control and risk-taking.

However, many have criticised Adler’s ‘Liberation thesis’.

Her statistical evidence has been challenged; since female crime rates were so low, even small rises in female crime would lead to large percentage increases, which may appear more significant that they are.

Her prediction that the increase would continue at a much faster rate than for male crime has been largely shown to be inaccurate, since 40 years later male crime remains significantly higher in both the US and the UK.

For example, according to Home Office crime statistics for England and Wales, prosecutions and convictions fell for both genders between 2009 and 2013.

Summary (minor) offence prosecutions saw a larger drop for males whereas indictable (serious) offence prosecutions saw a larger drop for females. In 2013, males still accounted for 82 per cent of arrests and 75 per cent of convictions in England and Wales
The notion of successful females committing crimes in the workplace, driven by ambition and aggression, is not supported by evidence.

Common female crimes such as prostitution and shoplifting are not driven by liberation, but by poverty and oppression.

Poor and marginalised women in the USA are more likely to be criminals than ‘liberated’, middle-class women according to Chesney-Lind (1997).

She did find some evidence of females branching into more traditionally ‘male’ offences, such as drugs offences.

However, far from being evidence of liberation, this was linked to economic and social issues facing young women, including gender expectations, and young women were often introduced to drugs by male family members or partners.

James and Thornton (1980) found that women prisoners were most likely to be from impoverished and uneducated backgrounds, and were mostly unaware of women’s liberation, which mainly benefitted middle-class women.

However, Adler argued that women’s liberation has affected all women, whether they are aware of it or not, since it created changes in society’s expectations and opportunities for women, regardless of whether a woman identified herself as a feminist or not.

Challenging Adler’s prediction regarding an increase in female criminality, Gelsthorpe (2006) considers the 150 per cent rise in the numbers of women in prison in England and Wales, which occurred between 1994 and 2004.

She argues that this is only partly related to an increase in female criminality during this time. Women still commit different types of crime to men (and they still commit crimes much less frequently than men.

Thus, the increase in women in prison does not necessarily reflect an increase in criminality amongst women, but more a shift in sentencing policy.

This may be more about a decline in ‘chivalry’ and a change in society’s perception of women, rather than a change in women’s perception of themselves

Recent changes in rates of female criminality

With the rise of the female liberation movement and the increase in female opportunities, the logic of the sex-role and control theories considered above would imply that we should start to see an increase in female crime.

Females are out in the public sphere more now, with fewer restrictions on their behaviour, and have different role expectations.

Masculinity: why do males commit more crime?

Some of the sex-role based explanations considered above suggest that because the expectations for women are limited to motherhood and marriage, there is less pressure on them to achieve success, so they may have less need to commit crime.

They will also have fewer opportunities for crime in the domestic context.

Conversely, the pressure on males to be the breadwinner, provider and protector may be a trigger for criminality.
Messerschmidt (1993) looks at hegemonic masculinity and the pressures on males to accomplish this.

Hegemonic masculinity emphasises competitive individualism, aggression and violence in relation to authority and control.

Drawing on ideas from Cohen, Messerschmidt argues that young males experience their world collectively, emphasising the importance of the school and the peer group, and argues that youth crime is a way of ‘doing masculinity’, especially when other resources are unavailable. Depending on the age and class of the male, he may accomplish his masculinity in different ways, some of which may be deviant and/or criminal.

For older males it may be by being a successful breadwinner or by beating his wife.

For youths it may be by gaining a reputation for violence, by being the hardest one in the gang, by number of sexual conquests, by drinking or by taking part in dares or pranks.

Similarly, Mosher (1991) characterises hegemonic masculinity as ‘hypermasculinity’, referring to its dangerousness and acceptance of violence.

A poor, jobless youth may display his masculinity, and thus enhance his status, through sexist banter, wearing gang-style clothing, or by carrying a gun.

Young males have a tendency to reproduce the existing versions of masculinity they are exposed to while growing up, according to Baird (2012), thus explaining the violent gang culture prevalent in much of inner-city America.

However, he argues that whether young males embark on violence and gang-membership as a path towards masculinity depends on the availability of family support and their ability to form ‘socialisation spaces’ away from the street corner, avoiding the ‘gang male role model system’.

The ‘crisis of masculinity’, which is alleged to have occurred through the decline of industrial jobs, may have led working class males towards more violent behaviour to accomplish their masculinity, as their traditional breadwinner role has been taken away.

Winlow (2001) considers this in his study of working class masculinity in Sunderland, arguing that mass unemployment in the 1980s left many young males in the North East without a breadwinner status, and violence became more significant as a way of expressing masculinity. He also suggests that new masculine careers, including drug dealing, protection rackets, dealing stolen goods, and ‘security’, demonstrate how criminality has become an ‘entrepreneurial concern’: a way of making money
Explaining the relationship between ethnicity and crime

The police recorded figures suggest that African Caribbean males commit more crime than their white counterparts, and that Asian crime rates are increasing.

The sociological debate surrounding such patterns of criminality has been divided between those who accept that certain ethnic groups are more criminal, focusing of the reasons for this, and those who highlight racism within the criminal justice system as an explanation for these patterns.

However, other analyses, such as that of left realists Lea and Young (1993), accept that these two views are not mutually exclusive, and that whilst there is some convincing evidence that black males in particular may experience discrimination in the criminal justice system, there may also be higher rates of criminality amongst this group.

Discrimination and racism within the criminal justice system

he interactionist concept of labelling can be applied to explain the high levels of arrest and conviction rates for black males.

Anderson (1990), in his study of policing in a neighbourhood of Philadelphia, argues that the police tended to assume white people were middle-class and trustworthy, whereas black people were lower class and criminal.

This ‘colour-coding’ often worked to confuse race, age, class and gender issues as well as ignoring individual behaviour according to Anderson.

He describes how police officers would stop, harass and abuse young black males on the street on a regular basis, though most had done nothing to deserve it.

The responses of the black males varied – some went to lengths to defer to the police and even dressed differently to try to avoid suspicion, but most saw it as inevitable and just part of life in their neighbourhood.

Hall (1999) considered the issue of policing and race relations in the two decades between the Scarman Report of 1982 and the McPherson Report of 1999.

The Scarman Report was the official response to racial violence and rioting in some British cities in the early 1980s.

The McPherson Report concluded the official inquiry into the murder of the black teenager Stephen Lawrence in 1993 and the subsequent police investigation.

The Scarman Report officially recognised, for the first time, that social and economic disadvantages faced by ethnic minority groups could create a disposition towards violent protest, but also highlighted the issues relating to the policing of such communities, endorsing more Racial Awareness Training programmes.

Hall argues that these recommendations were only partially implemented and not fully supported by the Government or the police.

Further riots followed in the mid-eighties, and police tactics became ever more aggressive in dealing with them.

In such a climate, Hall finds the flawed police investigation into Stephen Lawrence’s murder scandalous, but unsurprising.

Hall welcomed the conclusion of the McPherson Report, regarding institutional racism in the Metropolitan Police force, as a step forward in recognising and addressing some of the problems.

However, he concludes that until individuals are held more accountable for their actions, not much will change.

Supporting this conclusion, Phillips and Bowling (2002) argued that despite the McPherson Report, ethnic minority neighbourhoods were still over-policed with military style methods.

Institutional racism and police culture

Institutional racism refers to racism within the social processes and practices of an institution.

It has been widely applied to the police, and a related concept is ‘police culture’, sometimes referred to as ‘police occupational culture’ or ‘cop culture’.

This refers to a shared set of norms, values, attitudes and practices, which develop amongst the police, and which in turn affect the way in which they carry out their duties.

Another related concept is ‘canteen culture’ which refers more to the attitudes and values exhibited by the police in their off-duty socialising.

It has been suggested that police and canteen culture may include a normalisation of racist attitudes.

For example, Smith and Grey’s (1985) report for the Policy Studies Institute highlighted the explicit and accepted racist language of the officers they were observing.

Holdaway began his research into police culture as a serving officer in the 1970s.

He discusses the ‘racialisation’ of policing (1996), arguing that routine and mundane police work and relationships can take on a racial ‘framing’, through which people and events are seen in a way that prioritises race when it is not relevant or ignores race when it is. Consequently, police officers may inadvertently act in racist way without completely realising it.

Policing necessarily involves the exercising of discretion by individual police officers in the use of their powers.

Chan (1997) argues that inappropriate use of such discretion has led to the over- and under-policing of particular types of both offenders and victims.

A similar point is made by Bhilox (1983), when he states that most policing is directed at the excluded in society, who are often young, poor and black.

The police pursue policies of ‘differential deployment’ and ‘methodological suspicion’

This can have a negative impact on ethnic minority communities, who may feel a sense of injustice which can lead to further conflict.

Scraton (1985) similarly sees the police as an occupying force imposed on working class and ethnic minority communities.

They impose law which reflects ruling class interests, and black criminality is part of a ‘culture of resistance’, formed as a response to racism

Sentencing and the courts

Court data shows differences in the sentences issued to people of differing ethnicities.

Hood (1992) provided convincing evidence to show that race affects sentencing, demonstrating that when all other variables were taken into account, black men were 5 per cent more likely to be imprisoned than white men, and in some courts the difference was even greater.

More recent evidence suggests that things have not changed significantly.

A higher percentage of those from ethnic minority groups were sentenced to immediate custody than from the white group in 2010, and black people received the highest average custodial (prison) sentence length, at 20.8 months, with White people receiving the lowest average, at just 14.9 months.

The most common sentence outcome for white and mixed ethnic group offenders was a community sentence, whilst for black, Asian and Chinese or other offenders the most common sentence outcome was immediate custody.

Between 1993 and 2003, the white prison population increased by 48 per cent, but the black prison population increased by 138 per cent and Asian prison population increased by 73 per cent. Such evidence suggests that there is institutional racism within the criminal justice system as a whole, not just within the police, but within the justice system generally.

Evaluating institutional racism as an explanation of the relationship between ethnicity and crimeMany would argue that the differences in crime rates cannot all be down to institutional racism within the criminal justice system.

Police recorded crime statistics for London from 2010 showed that, though 12 per cent of men in London are black, 54 per cent of the street crimes, 46 per cent of knife crimes and almost half of gun crimes were thought to have been committed by black men by the Metropolitan Police.

This is largely based on the victim identifying their attacker as black, and many of these victims were black themselves.

Thus the police would justify more stop and searches and arrests on this basis.

Waddington et al (2004) have argued that the apparently higher levels of police stopping and searching young black and Asian males is not necessarily evidence of racism.

They consider other factors such as the ‘availability’ of people from certain ethnic backgrounds in public places and the age profile of those from ethnic minorities.

Waddington et al’s research suggests that black and Asian males were not treated disproportionately by the police, since the amount of times they were stopped and searched was in line with their proportion of the ‘available population’.

Many sociologists accept that individuals from certain ethnic groups are committing more offences, which are more serious and thus deserving of longer sentences.

Though partially accepting this, Glynn (2014) considers reasons for the persistent reoffending amongst black males and barriers to desistance from crime.

He argues that the belief that criminal justice processes are inherently racist, and the promotion of racist stereotypes creates a defiant reaction amongst some black males. Crime becomes a way of ‘getting back’ at a society which has rejected them.

Thus racism within the system may not just give the perception of higher crime rates amongst black males, it may also cause increased criminality.
Explaining higher levels of criminality within some ethnic groups

To explain the higher crime rates amongst some ethnic groups, the influence of culture and subculture are often considered, as well as issues relating to deprivation, exclusion and racism.
On the Edge, Carl Nightingale (1993)

Nightingale considered explanations for the high levels of criminality and violence amongst young black males in Philadelphia.

He argues that in addition to factors such as poverty, unemployment and racism, the culture of conspicuous consumption and the glorification of violence which pervade American culture are key factors.

Black youths in America consume the mainstream culture though the media like everyone else and buy into the dominant values of consumerism and money and power.

However, turning to deviant ways of achieving these goals, such as violence and crime, is an understandable response in light of their economic and racial exclusion from more legitimate paths.

Nightingale discusses ‘the paradox of inclusion’, in which the desire to be part of the mainstream culture which excludes them drives the desire for success, designer labels, and the American lifestyle.

However, poverty and racism inevitably mean that violence and criminal behaviour is the only available route to ‘success’.

This ‘paradox’ is also illustrated in Bourgois’ (1995) study of Latino and African-American drug dealers in New York’s El Barrio area. He discusses the ‘anguish of growing up poor’ in the richest city in the world, arguing that this creates an inner-city street culture in which deviant practices become the norm and are a way of surviving and gaining respect.

Bourgois argues that dealing drugs is a ‘rational’ career choice for ambitious and highly motivated youths in comparison to the existing on welfare or a minimum wage job
Similar ideas can be applied to explain higher levels of black criminality in the UK, though many researchers have been reluctant to focus on culture as an explanation for minority ethnic criminality, perhaps being overly conscious of contributing to pervasive racial stereotypes.

A report from the Home Affairs Select Committee of the House of Commons in 2007 concluded that a range of factors contributed to high levels of criminality amongst black youths; most notably: entrenched poverty, educational underachievement, high numbers of school exclusions, family conflict and breakdown linking to a high proportion of single-parent families, and lack of positive role models.

According to Pitts (2008), since the 1990s Britain has witnessed a rise in violent youth gangs and associated gang-related street culture.

In particular minority ethnic young people have found themselves ‘immobilised’ at the bottom of the economic ladder and cut adrift from the values of mainstream society.

This acute marginalisation has created a response of frustration and rage, and in this context, gang membership and violence have become normalised.

Gunter (2008) considers the importance of subculture in explaining crime amongst young black males in east London.

He highlights the significance of ‘road culture’ and ‘badness’ on young black people’s identities, experiences and lifestyle choices.

Road culture is influenced by black youth culture that is played out in public settings ‘on the road’ (streets and housing estates).

Young people involved in ‘badness’, characterised by violent behaviour, criminal activity and low-level drug dealing, are referred to as ‘living on road’, and gain respect.

Combining the two approaches – how racism can create resistance and criminality

Lea and Young (1982, 1983) in a left realist analysis of the link between race and crime, criticise the moral panics which have surrounded ‘black crime’, such as the way the media have focused on mugging and linked it to ethnicity in the past.

For example, they challenge the headline from the Sun newspaper on 23rd March 1983, which read ‘BLACK CRIME SHOCK: Blacks carried out twice as many muggings as whites in London last year’.

They point out that ‘mugging’ is actually not a distinct criminal offence, so statistics are not clear and may include a vast range of different incidents which are brought together in a misleading way to form a newsworthy headline.

Additionally, no reference to the ethnicity of the victims in such incidents is made, or to potential biases on the part of the police.

These ideas can be linked to Hall et al’s study of coverage of black mugging

The Myth of Black Criminality (1982), Police and Thieves (1982a) and Steppin’ out of Babylon – Race, Class and Autonomy (1982b), Paul Gilroy

Gilroy considers the history of race relations as a significant factor in explaining criminality amongst some ethnic groups.

Both British Asians and African Caribbeans originate from former colonies of Britain and carry ‘the scars of imperialist violence’, according to Gilroy.

Resistance to such imperial rule created a culture of resistance in the colonies, and in Britain similar techniques to resist exploitation were used.

For example, in the scenes of inner-city rioting in the late 1970s and early 1980s, in places such as Southall and Brixton, black and Asian communities consciously hit back against police harassment, racially motivated attacks and discrimination.

Thus, he sees ethnic minorities as defending themselves against a society that treats them unjustly.

Gilroy challenges those seeking to blame black culture, generational conflict or even deprivation for higher rates of black criminality.

Gilroy argues that the ‘myth of black criminality’ serves a political agenda, allowing the ‘alien immigrant’ and the ‘black mugger’ to personify crime.

It is fuelled by racist police practices, targeting black communities.

The media contribute to this myth by stereotyping black males, which leads to more public labelling and justifies more control

However, Lea and Young also challenge those who dismiss any link between race and crime as ‘merely’ evidence of racism in the criminal justice system.

Though accepting that this racism exists, as realists they argue that higher crime rates amongst certain minority ethnic groups are real and need to be understood.

Racial discrimination will lead to an acute awareness of ‘unnecessary injustices’, and in addition, some sections of black and Asian communities in the UK are particularly affected by unemployment and deprivation.

Lea and Young discuss the ways in which a minority of the oppressed groups in any industrialised society are ‘brutalised’ into criminality, thus suggesting that race and class combine to partially explain patterns of offending.

Additionally, they point out that most crime is ‘intra-racial’ rather than ‘inter-racial’, and thus also ‘intra-class’, furthering their argument that issues of race are not necessarily central to criminality, but issues of social class often are.

These arguments about deprivation and social class being the key indicators of criminality can also help to explain why some ethnic groups (such as those of Indian or Chinese origin) have much lower crime rates than others, which is hard to reconcile with the idea of a racist criminal justice system, but more understandable when social class is taken into account.

However, Palmer (2013) challenges arguments which see race as a secondary factor to social class, suggesting that they place too little emphasis on racial discrimination within the criminal justice system and ignore real distinctions between the identities and experiences of white and black working-class youths.

She argues that because of the multiple disadvantages faced by young, black males, it cannot be assumed that they commit crime for the same reasons as young white males, since race and racism must be taken into account.

Her own research, conducted with black residents of an inner-city London neighbourhood, supports several of the explanations considered above.

For example, wider culture and the media impacted on the aspirations of the black youths she studied, who made references to feelings of ‘relative deprivation’ and ‘unnecessary injustices’. However, Palmer’s respondents also referred to a lack of discipline within families, and feelings of being let down by their community as well as education and wider society.

Like Gilroy, she also feels that ‘group histories’ have an impact on the ways in which individuals make sense of their world.

Palmer concludes that whilst racism may not be a direct cause of crime, its impact on how young, black males see themselves and other black people is a relevant factor

Asians and crime

Crime levels amongst British Asians have, until relatively recently, been disproportionately lower than or similar to those of white people.

This has been linked to strong family values and socialisation within Asian families, and to them not fitting in with the police stereotype of ‘criminals’ – unlike those from African Caribbean backgrounds.

However, since the Home Office tends to classify ‘Asians’ in one category, which includes those of Indian, Pakistani and Bangladeshi backgrounds, who may have very different social class and cultural backgrounds, FitzGerald and Sibbitt (1997) have argued that this has long masked different crime patterns within these groups.

Despite this, crime rates amongst young Asian males have been increasing significantly in recent years.

Similar explanations to those relating to black males some years ago, relating to age-profile and socio-economic factors could partially explain this increase.

Bowling, Parmar and Phillips (2003) highlight the ‘pliability’ of stereotypes of Asian people, demonstrating that previous conformist perceptions of Asians, and particularly Muslims, have altered.

They suggest that the stereotypes previously assumed to explain law-abiding behaviour, relating to strong sense of community, family and religious values, are now thought to promote criminal and deviant activity amongst Asian youth.

Similarly, Abbas (2004) argues that the stereotype of the ‘passive Asian’ has given way to a climate of ‘Islamophobia’ following 9/11 and more recent terrorist scares.

For example, evidence suggests that the stopping and searching of Asians by the police has increased significantly in recent years.

Current concerns about ‘radicalisation’ have led to claims about the targeting of young Muslims by the police and harsher punishments being issued by the courts.

Feminism

There are two broad approaches to crime committed by women.

Some feminists suggest that females commit more crime than the official criminal statistics indicate.

For example, self-reports show much higher rates of criminality among girls and women

This approach also argues that female criminals are less likely to appear in the crime statistics because they are treated more softly by the police

This is supposedly the result of paternalistic stereotypes held by police officers who label females as less suspicious and criminal than males.

However, this view has been challenged by Heidensohn, who argues that certain types of women, for example those who do not fit the feminine–maternal stereotype (lesbians, feminists, prostitutes), are treated more harshly by the courts, as are women who kill, who are viewed as ‘double deviants’ because they have broken the ‘rules’ of both society and femininity.

However, a second feminist approach accepts that females do not commit as much crime as males and attempts to explain why.

This approach suggests that part of the answer might lie with gender role socialisation, which socialises female children into values and norms such as gentleness, empathy, nurturance and compassion that may discourage crime.

On the other hand, socialisation into masculinity may mean the learning of behaviours such as aggression, competitiveness and risk taking, which could easily spill over into deviance.

Smart also notes that parents exercise more social controls over girls compared with boys and consequently boys are more likely to be found in public spaces with their peers where crime occurs while girls spend more time in the home.

Girls may also be more likely to avoid deviant behaviour because they fear a ‘bad reputation’. These social controls may extend into adulthood — for example, females are less likely to be out alone at night compared with males.

Carlen uses a ‘control theory’ approach to explain why some females might be motivated to commit crime.

Her interviews with female prisoners found that many of them had been sexually and physically abused both as children and as adults.

Many of them had run away and were homeless as a result.

Many had turned to drugs.

Carlen argues that these women are more likely than most other women to lack the controls
of attachment, commitment, involvement and belief

Carlen argues that these women have nothing to lose by committing criminality because they have been excluded from the normal deals that women experience

The benefits of crime, therefore, for these women far outweigh the costs of crime.

Other feminist analyses of female crime have focused on the feminisation of poverty.

There is some evidence that females, especially single mothers, are more likely to experience poverty and that this may be fuelling crimes such as shoplifting, benefit fraud and prostitution. Other feminists suggest that violent crime committed by young females is on the increase. Burman suggests that this may be the result of increased alcohol intake but it may also indicate that some working-class young females are adopting male traits such as aggression, competitiveness and thrill seeking.

Evaluation of feminism

Feminists, apart from Carlen, have been criticised for over-focusing on gender and neglecting the fact that most female offenders are working class.

Working-class girls and women who turn to crime are probably motivated by many of the same factors that motivate working-class men, that is, poverty and the feelings of humiliation, powerlessness, envy and hostility that accompany this marginalised position in society