Summary AQA A-level Sociology Student Guide 3: Crime and deviance with theory and methods
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Crime and Deviance
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AQA A-level Sociology Student Guide 3: Crime and deviance with theory and methods
Detailed textbook notes for control, punishment and victims for crime and deviance in Alevel Sociology
Detailed but concise and tailored to exam prep and questions
Topic 1 Functionalist, Strain and Subcultural Theories. Two In-depth Essays (30 marker and 10 marker) guaranteed to get you top marks. From the 'AQA A-level Sociology Book Two'
Summary AQA A-level Sociology Student Guide 3: Crime and deviance with theory and methods
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A Level Sociology
Crime and Deviance
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Topic 9 – Control, Punishment and Victims:
Crime Prevention and Control:
Situational Crime Prevention:
Clarke describes situational crime prevention as ‘a pre-emotive approach that relies,
not on improving society or its institutions, but simply on reducing opportunity for
crime’
Identified 3 features;
o Directed at specific crimes
o Involve managing or altering the immediate environment of the crime
o Aim to reduce the effort and risk of committing crime and reducing rewards
E.g ‘target hardening’ measures such as locking doors and installing CCTV increases
the likelihood of shoplifters being caught
Underlying SCP is the rational choice theory of crime – the view that all criminals act
rationally
Contrasts with theories of crime that stress ‘root causes’ of crime such as early
socialisation or capitalist exploitation
o They would argue that to deal with crime we would need to change the
socialisation of a lot of children or stage a revolution
Clarke argues that most theories have no realistic solutions to crime – he argues we
should focus of the immediate crime situation as most crime is opportunistic
Felton give the example of the Port authority Bus Terminal in NYC. It was portly
designed and provided to setting for luggage thefts, rough sleeping and drug dealing.
o Re-shaping the physical environment to ‘design crime out’ greatly reduced such
activity
Displacement:
One criticism of SCP is that it doesn’t reduce crime, only displaces it
o If criminals do all act rationally, then they will respond to target hardening
measures by just moving elsewhere
Chaiken et al found that a crackdown on subway Robbins simply displaced them to
the streets above
Displacement can take several forms; spatial, temporal, target, tactical or functional
Evaluation:
It works to some extent but with most measure there is some kind of displacement
as a result
Focuses almost solely on opportunistic street crime which ignores white collar or
state crime
Assumes all criminals make rational decision about what crimes they commit –
unlikely when it comes to violent crime or crimes committed under the influence of
alcohol
Ignores root causes of crime such as poverty or poor socialisation so it’s hard to
develop long-term strategies for crime reduction
Environmental Crime Prevention:
Based on the article written by Wilson and Kelling – ‘Broken Windows’
o They used this phrase to stand for all signs of disorder and lack of concern for
others that can be found in some neighbourhoods
E.g. Undue noise, begging, littering, vandalism
, In these neighbourhoods, there is an absence of both formal social control(the
police) and informal control (the community)
o The police are only concerned with serious crimes while relic it’s,e members of
the community feel powerless against it
o Without action, the situation deteriorates, and the area becomes a magnet for
deviants
Zero Tolerance Policing:
Wilson and Kelling’s key idea is that an absence of control leads to crime so their
solution is to crack down on any sign of disorder
o An environmental improvement strategy; repairing all broken windows and
removing vandalism as soon as it appears to stop more following
o Zero tolerance policing strategy; need to proactively tackle even the slightest sign
of disorder, even if it isn’t criminal because this will stop more serious crime
taking place
Evidence:
Successes for zero tolerance policing has been shown in NY, ‘Clean Car Program’ was
instituted on the subway where any cars that had been vandalised were
immediately removed and graffiti was largely removed from the subway as a result
However, many other things could had contributed to the significant fall in crime,
including a 50% drop in homicide rate
o 7000 new officers to the NYPD
o From 1994, many new jobs were being created meaning more were employed
o Decline in the availability of cocaine
However, it has been very influential in the US and UK where is has influenced anti-
social behaviour policies
Social and Community Crime Prevention:
Emphasis placed on potential offenders and their social contexts
o Aim to remove conditions that predispose individuals to commit crimes
o Long-term strategies of tackling root causes rather than just removing
opportunities for crime
As the causes of crime are often unemployment/ poverty, general social reform
programmes addressing these will also help to prevent crime
The Perry Pre-School Project:
A group of 3-4-year olds in Michigan were offered a 2-year long intellectual
enrichment programme
A longitudinal study followed their progress
o By age 40, they had significantly fewer arrests for violent crime, property
crime and drugs are most had graduated high school and were employed
o It was calculated that for every $ spent on the programme, $17 had been
saved on welfare and prison
Surveillance:
Surveillance; the monitoring of public behaviour for the purposes of population or
crime control. It involves observing behaviour to gather date and use that data to
regulate, manage or correct the behaviour
Surveillance has been around since the 14th century plague to monitor and record
the spread of the disease
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